Harry Potter and the Something Something
by Legendary Legacy
Summary: Hey, wouldn't it be cool if someone took as many fanfic cliches as possible and stuffed them all into one story? No? Well, I went ahead and did it anyway. Multi-chapter Mockfic. This summary is actually a lot better than I originally thought.
1. Chapter 1

Hello again, readers and strangers. If the summary didn't make it obvious enough, this story is going to be filled to the brim with Harry Potter (and general fanfic) cliche lampooning. I imagine it'll be somewhere around ten chapters by the time I'm finished (assuming I finish, that is).

Just do me a small favor and don't read this hoping for deep and meaningful story-telling or character development; if you find any of either, it'll probably be by accident.

Also, if you want to enjoy the story a little easier, turn it into a drinking game, and take a shot every time you see a cliche you hate (unless, of course, you're underage, in which case only take half a shot. Remember: Always drink responsibly).

So, without further ado, I give you...

Harry Potter and the Something Something

A Harry Potter Mockfic

By Legendary Legacy

Standard Disclaimer: The characters and settings of Harry Potter are the property of J. K. Rowling and whomever she's given the rights to.

Mockfic Disclaimer: If you don't like the idea of me making fun of various stupid or overused (in my opinion) themes/plotlines that you enjoy for whatever reason, then I suggest saving yourself some time and hitting the 'Back' button right now.

Don't like? Read anyway. And then bitch to me about it when you're done. It's not like you have anything better to do with your time, right?

xxx

xxx

Our story begins, as so many stories tend to do, during the summer between Fifth and Sixth Year. This is most likely due to popular consensus saying that this was about the point where the series started to suck, and therefore makes it the most appropriate time to diverge from canon. Or it could be because all the important characters are now at a fairly acceptable age to start having sex. One or the other.

Anyway, it was on a day during this summer that Harry Potter awoke to the sense that something was wrong. It took all of three seconds to figure out exactly what was wrong when he found himself unable to sit up in his bed. The first reason was because it hurt to move. It hurt a lot. All over. Excruciatingly.

And the second reason was because someone had chained him to the bed. Not by his wrists and ankles to the bedposts, but by an enormous length of chain wrapped several dozen times around his entire body, completely anchoring him to his mattress.

This was…odd.

He didn't have a lot of time to ponder the issue before someone started pounding hard on his octuple-bolted bedroom door.

"Hey boy!" his uncle Vernon's angry voice pierced the room. "I want breakfast on the table three minutes ago! And after you're finished watching the rest of us eat it there are some heavy cement blocks on the front lawn that I need lugged up to the attic and then carried back down to the back yard! And get a move on it or Dudley and I won't have time to give you your morning beating before I go to work!"

Harry frowned. This was…also odd. Vernon seemed to be a bit grumpier than usual. Though, he was talking like this were an every day occurrence despite what Harry personally remembered. Maybe he was suffering amnesia from a previous beating or something.

The pounding grew louder. "BOY! Get out here now or I'll reschedule your morning beating to before breakfast!"

Harry shivered, feeling certain that this wasn't a bluff. Unfortunately, he was chained to the bed. And the key to his padlock was hanging all the way over on the far-side wall. Quite unfortunate.

"Um, Uncle Vernon?" he called. "I can't seem to reach the key to these chains."

"Oh, making excuses, are we! Well, maybe a savage beating will get you out of that bed!"

Harry began to sweat. "Uh…I think just coming in and unlocking the chains will get me out there plenty quickly-"

The door suddenly burst open, revealing a furious face in a shade that could only be properly referred to as puce. He held a thick leather belt in one hand and a set of knuckledusters on the other. "Here I thought I'd already knocked all that rebelliousness out of you, but it seems you need a reminder!"

"…No really, if you'll just hand me the key, I'll- does that belt have fish hooks sticking out of it!"

"I'm gonna count to three!"

Harry was certain of it now. Something was very, very wrong around here. He just hoped he lived long enough to figure it out.

xxx

Three days later, Harry had gained a newfound jealousy of the dead.

His relative's attitudes toward him had for some reason been kicked up to Eleven, treating him with a furious rage and hatred so powerful that Harry could probably consider Voldemort, Snape and Malfoy to be three of his closest friends by comparison. Whereas before they would usually just leave him in his room where they wouldn't have to look at him until they needed someone to cook or handle chores that none of them wanted to do themselves, now he barely saw his room unless he were sleeping because he was too busy doing every single menial, ridiculous and increasingly life-threatening task that Vernon and Petunia could think of. Or he was getting the crap beat out of him by Vernon or Dudley and his friends. Of course, since those beatings would occasionally come out of nowhere, including in the middle of the night, he wasn't exactly getting a lot of sleep even when he was in his room for it.

Maybe they had taken exception to being threatened by Moody and the others back at King's Cross. Or maybe they realized that they had just been taking for granted how deeply and perversely they enjoyed making his life hell after all these years and wanted to make up for lost time.

Harry had the sneaking suspicion that it was the second reason.

"Boy! I'm trying to come up with some new ways that I could make your life even more miserable than it already is, but I'm having a hard time with it. What do you think?" Vernon asked him one morning.

Harry, albeit happy to hear that his relatives were running out of ways to torture him, was caught off guard so badly by his uncle asking for his opinion on something that he actually took a few moments to think about it.

"I don't know, Uncle Vernon. I mean, you're already allowing me only the barest minimal necessities for keeping me alive. You're also beating me on a four times a day basis, five times on Saturday since it's your day off, plus the beatings that Dudley and his friends give me whenever they feel like it. Also, I've never been allowed to properly tend to any of the wounds I've received from those beatings, so my body's probably heavily infected in multiple places right now. You killed my owl and then forced me to cook her for your supper, and then beat me because she was too salty. I could honestly die any day now of starvation, dehydration, overexertion, or a combination of all three. The jury's still out on whether or not I've contracted cancer from that toxic waste you dumped on me the other day, and let's not forget that I'm also mentally scarred, not just from all the verbal abuse I take from you three, but also from seeing my godfather, the last remaining family I have that cared about me even the slightest bit, killed right in front of me not so long ago. I can honestly say that my life sucks about as hard as is metaphorically possible already and, off the top of my head, can't think of a single way that you could make it worse short of murdering the rest of my friends in front of me."

Vernon thought about that for a moment, making a mental note to return that toxic waste barrel to the dump before Dudley started eating it. There had to be something he could do to further torment the boy. What else did he have to live for if he couldn't fulfill such sadistic pleasures anymore?

Then an idea came to him. "Well, what if I were to violate you sexually?"

"...Well, there you go: that would do it," Harry said with a firm certainty. "That would be the proverbial icing on the seven-layer tragedy cake of my life. I really have to commend you, Uncle. Voldemort himself could take lessons on what it means to be a truly evil bastard from you. And I'm not just saying that, either. When Voldemort wants to be evil he just kills people, or tortures them into insanity and then kills them. Pretty cut and dry stuff. But you? Hell, you actually sap the very life out of a person, making them so unbearably miserable that it just completely takes away any will to continue living that they might have had. And then when they think their life has hit rock-bottom, well you just go find them a pick-ax and tell them to get back to digging. Truly monumental, that."

Vernon blinked a few times, taking a moment to get back up to speed. "You're giving me a lot of unexpected praise here, boy, so just so I'm not misunderstanding: Me sodomizing you would make you unhappy, right?"

"I was sort of hoping that the rant and the praise would distract you enough that you'd forget to actually do it, but yes. Yes it would."

"Excellent!" Vernon shouted, looking immensely pleased with his brilliant idea. "Just let me go grab some things from Petunia's sock drawer and, assuming that no random strangers come to the house before I get back, we'll get right to it!"

As the fat man ascended the stairs, Harry wondered if it would be at all possible to run to his room, write out an SOS message, send it off to the nearest friend or authority figure he could think of and have them arrive within the next twenty seconds to rescue him.

Not likely. Especially since it took him five of those seconds to come up with the plan and another twelve to calculate who was most likely to reach him the quickest if he sent it to them. Consequently, he hadn't even the time to leave the room before Vernon returned with a handful of objects that even a consenting person would probably find disconcerting to have used upon them. The child-at-Christmas grin on Vernon's face just added to the horror.

"Well, let's not wait around all day boy. Can't have you returning to that freak school of yours any less than one hundred percent traumatized, now can we?"

The doorbell rang. Harry nearly fainted in relief.

"Bugger, must be the milkman," Vernon surmised. "Here, hold these." He thrust the multitude of disturbing objects into Harry's arms and stomped over to the door.

Believe it or not, it was not the milkman. It was, in fact, a woman who neither Vernon nor Harry had ever met before. The woman had a very generic look to her, which is just this author's way of saying 'make up your own image for her' since he doesn't feel like going into detail about an OC who won't ever be appearing again after the next chapter.

"Hello," the woman greeted Vernon. "My name is Emma Davis. My daughter goes to the same school as your nephew, and I..."

She trailed off as her focus shifted from Vernon to Harry; standing in the middle of the room, looking fresh out of a twelve round fight with a pair of bludgers after a ten year stint in Azkaban holding an armload of kinky sex toys.

"Morgana's morning breath!" she swore as she pushed past Vernon and grasped the boy at arm's length. "Tracy told me you spent a lot of time in the hospital wing, but I never imagined this! What on earth have these relatives of yours been teaching you, Potter?"

"...What?"

"Listen Harry, I don't want to tell you how to live your life, and I understand how young people get their thrills with experimentation and whatnot, but Merlin's jockstrap, hasn't anyone explained to you about using safe-words?"

"...What?"

"Well it's obvious that you're not getting the proper upbringing that a person of your status deserves, Harry," Mrs. Davis continued, swiping the toys from his grasp and pulling him toward the door. "You'll just have to spend the rest of the summer with my family, away from these irresponsible muggles. We'll have you straightened out in no time." So saying, she escorted him past his uncle, out the door, and into a waiting car.

Vernon finally remembered that he should probably be objecting to something here only after he'd watched the car disappear around the block. Oh well, it wasn't like he was going to miss the boy or anything. Well, he'd miss having someone to beat, but maybe he could just start beating Petunia for the time being. After all, that boy's freakiness had obviously come from her side of the family, so she probably deserved it anyway.

xxx

xxx

Figured I'd start with the obvious cliche of "Dursley's being more evil than Voldemort himself", supplementing it with the less recognizable "Harry is rescued and taken away by the parent of some girl he barely/doesn't even know". And no, I've never actually seen it done with Tracy Davis's family, but I have seen it done with Pansy, Daphney, Susan, Luna, Tonks, Fleur, and (I think) Cho and the Patil's families. This of course doesn't mean it hasn't been done with Tracy or others, just that I haven't read them yet, which I think is understandable.

Next Time: More mockery.

Til then.

LL


	2. Chapter 2

All right, now that we've thoroughly made Harry's life a living Hell and then rescued him from self-same Hell, I guess the next logical step would be to fix him back up. Completely.

In the span of a single Summer.

Because that's not contrived or anything.

Enjoy. Or don't.

xxx

xxx

Harry came to the realization that he should probably be saying something right around the same time as his uncle had. He was essentially being kidnapped, after all. Though, considering the alternative, this was probably the most welcome kidnapping that one would ever experience.

He stared at the generic-looking woman driving beside him. "…So, uh…"

The woman smiled. "Oh, I'm sorry. We haven't been properly introduced. I'm Emma. My daughter Tracy is in the same year at Hogwarts as you."

Harry stared blankly at her.

"Tracy Davis?" Emma prodded. "You've seen her before, haven't you?"

More blank stare.

"She's a Slytherin?"

"Uh...I've heard of a Roger Davies, but he's a Ravenclaw," he said lamely.

Emma rolled her eyes. "Yes, that's her."

After a few minutes of riding in silence, Harry couldn't help but wonder. "Why in the world is this happening? I mean, you just deciding to visit me like you did?" After all, what on earth were the chances of some parent of a girl he barely knew anything about all of a sudden deciding to take an active interest in his personal life at this stage of it?

"Well, Tracy talks about you all the time, you see?" she explained.

"Oh. …Why?"

"Well, you may not know this, but my husband is a muggle, which makes Tracy a half-blood. And when she started school, she was sorted into Slytherin, where half-bloods and muggle-borns almost never end up. Of course, that means that her housemates all hate her, so she's never really had any friends and is forced to keep a low profile so as not to draw unwanted attention to herself."

Harry nodded. "I suppose that could explain why I've never seen or heard of her before."

"Possibly, but due to being half-blood, she also doesn't subscribe to all that pure-blood supremacy garbage like the rest of them. She's tried making friends with other houses, but they all see her as just another Slytherin, while the Slytherins don't think she's worthy enough to associate with them. So she ends up being all alone."

"Wow, I can totally relate to that," Harry said, sadly reminded of his own horrible lonely existence before coming to Hogwarts and meeting Hagrid and Ron and Hermione.

"That's good to hear," Emma smiled. "It's only natural that a person have some common ground with their potential love interest."

"What?"

"So naturally you and her will be able to find some common ground and become good friends while you're staying with us."

"Oh. Thought you said something else." He thought for a moment. "But you never really answered my question."

Emma furrowed her brow in confusion. "Hmm? What question was that?"

"Why you decided to just come and visit me at my muggle relatives today even though we've never actually met before. Not that I'm complaining, mind you; you showed up at a pretty damn convenient time. Just seems kind of...coincidental, is all."

"Oh that. Don't worry about it."

Harry blinked. "Don't worry about it? But what-?"

"Harry, dear, sometimes in life, there come times where it's just best for everyone if you don't question how or why things happen, okay?"

"...So I'm not supposed to question how or why you managed to appear at just the right time to rescue me from one of the top five most horrible moments of my life?"

"That's right, dear."

"Huh. Well...okay, I guess. I mean, it's gonna drive me crazy trying to figure it out on my own, but...whatever."

Emma smiled. "All that aside, you didn't seem too opposed to coming with me, despite us being complete strangers as you've mentioned."

"Yeah well, it was either come with you and hope for the best, or stay there and have my uncle rape me."

"Merlin's ingrown toenails!" Emma shouted, completely scandalized. "It's going to be even harder to rehabilitate you than I thought." She turned back to the road, shaking her head. "Kids and their wild fetishes these days."

Harry spent much of the trip hitting his head against the passenger window.

xxx

And so began the remainder of the summer with the Davis's. Harry was introduced to Emma's husband Daniel, who was every bit as generic as his wife, and their daughter Tracy, who was basically a younger version of Emma but with larger breasts.

Things were a bit strange at first, what with getting small misunderstandings, such as Harry convincing them that he wasn't really an incestuous masochist or anything of the sort. But before too long they were all bonding, with Emma even taking time to teach Harry various new spells, jinxes and hexes, which would no doubt come in handy later on.

Even better than that was the relationship between he and Tracy, who, after only a few days in her company began to wonder how he could have possibly gone so long without noticing her before. Despite her overall genericness, Harry found himself inexplicably drawn to her more and more with each passing hour. It could have been the awkward time when Harry walked into the bathroom while she was there and caught a flash of naked boobies for the first time in his life, or possibly the nights they spent outside, gazing up at the stars, laughing together about the strange experiences they'd each had in the past, or shedding tears as they traded stories about all the terrible things that had happened to them in their lives, whereafter they would swear a magical vow upon eternal loss of their magic to always be there for one another, so that no matter how horrible things ended up, they would always have at least one other person to care for them.

But who are we kidding? It was the boobies.

xxx

As the summer drew to a close, the school lists arrived, and it was time to take a trip to Diagon Alley. Harry and the Davis's Floo'ed their way to Gringotts to make their withdrawals. As they approached the front desk, Harry had an inkling. The goblin helping them seemed familiar.

"Your name was Griphook, right?" he asked.

The goblin's eyes narrowed. "No, it's not. Griphook is in the back right now."

Harry frowned. "Oh, sorry. But you do look familiar. …Ripclaw?"

The look of indignation grew darker. "No, and I take offense to that. Despite human stereotypes, all goblin names are not the barbaric combination of a verb and a noun."

Harry could suddenly feel several irritated goblin eyes focused in on him. "S-sorry. Uh, so what is your name then?"

"Emma."

"…R-really?"

"Yeah, really. Is that a problem?"

"Well, no. It's just that Emma is usually a girl's name."

"I AM a girl!"

"Oops," he muttered as even more glares of annoyance fell upon him.

"This is why most wizards don't try to get too chummy with goblins, Harry," Mrs. Davis informed him once they had moved on to the vaults. "They get so touchy about things like that. It's not our fault they all look alike."

They quickly gathered their galleons and returned to the front desk.

"By the way, Mr. Potter, there's to be a reading of one Sirius Black's last will and testament in a few weeks. As one of his prime beneficiaries, you'll want to make sure you're here for it."

Harry nodded his appreciation. "Thanks, Emma."

The goblin glared at him. "Emma left. I'm Griphook."

Harry cussed under his breath. "Sorry, I keep confusing the two of you-"

"How could you confuse me with Emma? We look nothing alike! We're not even the same gender, for Pukeblood's sake! Though, I suppose to a big, important human like you, we must ALL look alike, right?"

Harry glanced around at the half dozen goblins present. "Well…" Thankfully, Tracy dragged him outside before he could make an even bigger fool of himself.

xxx

With that embarrassing scene behind them, the group spent the rest of the day buying supplies.

Since they were a truly generous sort, the Davis' not only helped Harry buy all his school supplies, but also a brand new wardrobe, a new snowy-white owl to replace Hedwig (Harry named her Hedwig to avoid any confusion), a special quill that would do his homework for him, an extra wand so that he could dual-cast spells, a Parseltongue-to-English dictionary in case he wanted to cast spells like a snake, a brand new Firebolt Mach2 which could fly just as fast as the name suggested, a pack of remedial growth potions guaranteed to fix his lifetime of malnourishment in two weeks or his money back, and a collection of books, including such titles as "Potion Brewing Made Simpler Than Boiling Water" and "Forbidden Arts and How to Cast Them Without Getting Punished", from a small shop on the corner of Knockturn Alley.

"You know, Harry," Emma mentioned, giving his face a cursory look as they all sat eating their lunch at some random restaurant. "We should take you to a magical eye doctor. Those irresponsible muggles have probably been forcing you to wear glasses with incorrect prescription lenses, so we should see about altering them for you."

Harry frowned, removed his glasses and looked around, then put them back on again. "Actually, I can see just fine with these. I mean, I'm a Seeker in quidditch and I can spot a golfball-sized snitch from as far away as-"

"Well then," she interrupted. "Why don't we just have them alter your eyes so that you don't need glasses at all? Or maybe we can go all out and give your eyes X-ray and night-vision?"

"They can do that?"

"Of course, Harry. Magic can do anything. Except explain how it's able to do the things it does. But then, 'magic' itself is the answer to that, too."

"…Okay, I guess. But why do any wizards even bother wearing glasses if there's magic that can fix it?"

"Well, there is the eighty-five percent chance that your eyeballs will explode during the procedure, and another sixty percent chance you'll spend the rest of your life bleeding from your sockets, not to mention-"

"You know what?" Harry said with a shiver of discomfort. "Maybe I'll just invest in some contact lenses or something."

"X-ray contact lenses?"

"Well, of course."

xxx

xxx

Oh, those kooky goblins. Wouldn't it be great if you could earn the respect and devotion of an entire race of creatures simply by remembering one of their names? That sure would make fighting a war and gathering mass amounts of riches pretty easy, wouldn't it. Yep...sure would...

Hm, kind of a weak chapter, if I do say so. Oh well, hopefully the next one should make up for it.

Anyway, now that Harry's armed with a loving (though generic) girlfriend, a boatload of new spells and a trunk full of super-awesome magical goodies, looks like it's time to return to Hogwarts. What new mockeries could possibly await us along the way? Find out next time.

Til then.

LL


	3. Chapter 3

I'm so ashamed of myself. As a couple reviewers pointed out, I overlooked a major point of Harry's Awesome New Stuff Cliche: The magic trunk with a freaking mansion inside it. How could I forget something so annoying...? Oh well, I'm making this all up as I go along, so I'm sure I can fit it in later on somewhere.

For now though, I tackle quite possibly my most hated of all Harry Potter cliches (plus a smattering of less offensive ones mixed in with it). Enjoy, or don't. Your choice.

xxx

xxx

The summer ended and finally it was time to return to Hogwarts. Harry packed up his stuff and the Davis's dropped him and Tracy off at the entrance to King's Cross. The two separated to find their own friends, agreeing to meet up later. The Hogwarts Express had yet to arrive in the station, whether they were early or the train was somehow late, he wasn't sure. But that issue soon took a backseat in his mind as he pushed his trunk toward the dock and suddenly came face-to-face with...himself.

"Well, look who it is," his clone greeted, smirking a smirk so smug that even Jesus would feel the urge to slap it off.

"Who are you?" Harry demanded, making a mental list of the number of people who had access to strands of his hair.

The clone laughed arrogantly. "Oh come now, Harry. Just because you're insanely jealous of me doesn't mean you have to pretend you don't know your own twin brother anymore."

"...I don't have a twin brother," Harry stated with ninety-eight percent certainty.

His 'brother' laughed more arrogantly. "So you're in the denial stage now, huh? Well, I suppose I can't really blame you for not wanting to associate yourself with me. It can't be easy living in the shadow of the Boy-Who-Lived for all these years, after all."

Harry stared at him as though he was a particularly unusual flobberworm, then he lifted his bangs away from his forehead, revealing his copyrighted Lightning-bolt Scar. "I'm the Boy-Who-Lived."

His brother laughed even MORE arrogantly, before lifting his own bangs to reveal what appeared to be a very tiny, though incredibly detailed depiction of Camelot Castle.

"Is that a tattoo?" Harry asked, leaning in to get a closer look.

His brother quickly dropped his bangs and stepped back. "No you bloody git. It's the scar I got the night that Voldemort attacked us, symbolizing that I, Daniel Bartholomew Potter, am the true Boy-Who-Lived, while you're just a worthless, envious, bitter, whiny, nobody who even our own parents don't love."

Harry frowned. "What are you talking about? Our...my parents are-"

"Daniel sweety! You forgot one of your books!"

Harry turned around and his jaw dropped.

"Mum? Dad!"

Lily and James Potter stopped in their tracks at seeing their other son standing next to Daniel.

"Look Lily," James stage-whispered to her. "It's that other kid you accidentally gave birth to."

"So it is," she stage-whispered back. "I was certain he'd died last year."

"No, I think Daniel saved him again."

"Oh, right. Well, there's always next time I suppose." With that, they bypassed Harry and began smothering Daniel is all sorts of love and affection, apparently forgetting that they'd just finished doing the exact same thing two minutes ago and had only come back to give him his book.

"You're alive!" Harry gaped, purposely ignoring the conversation his parents had shared at his expense. His words also drew the attention of other arriving students and parents, some of whom included Hermione, the Weaselys, and Luna Lovegood, who all decided to gather around the Potters to eavesdrop.

"What's going on?" Hermione asked.

"Seems the other Potter boy is whining about something again," Molly told her.

"Blimey, that's all he ever does!" Ron grumbled in frustration. He raised his voice to a mockingly high-pitched level, "Boo-hoo, I'm the real Boy-Who-Lived! Boo-hoo, Daniel keeps stealing all the credit from me! Boo-hoo, someone poisoned me and I can't find an antidote! Boo-hoo-hoo!"

Ginny giggled nervously. Damn good thing she'd decided to test out that love potion on Harry before giving it to Daniel. Her mom had forgotten to mention that the harpy's blood had to be Type A Positive in order to make it work properly.

Even the twins were nodding in agreement with their brother. "Yeah, it-"

"-does get-"

"-pretty-"

"-annoying-"

"-after a-"

"-while."

Harry was still gaping at his living parents, who were doing their best to pretend he didn't exist. "Why the heck am I living with the Dursley's if you're both still alive?" he demanded.

James and Lily gave a collective sigh, as though the effort of even speaking to their Other Son was a burden greater than they could bear.

"Because, Harold-"

"Harry," he corrected his mother.

"Harry, we never intended to have more than one child, because we both knew we could only have love enough in our hearts for one. Oh, don't get us wrong, we tried loving you both, but after the attack by You-Know-Who, it became obvious to everyone that we couldn't love you nearly as much as Daniel."

"…Why?"

James scoffed. "Because he's so much better than you in every possible way, that's why! And all good parents know that the more special child is the one that deserves all the attention. I mean, come on: You didn't even kill a Dark Lord who terrorized the entire country and was so powerful that grown men and women couldn't speak his name when you were a year old!"

"What could ever make you think that you were worthy of our love and attention if you couldn't even do something like that?" Lily added coldly.

Harry remained dumbfounded for several long seconds before finding his voice. "I actually did kill him back then-"

A chorus of "Liar"s and "Stop leeching off of Daniel"s rang through the air, putting an end to his attempt of an explanation.

Lily continued. "So, after we came home from our night on the town to discover what Daniel had done-"

"You're saying you left us home alone?" Harry demanded. "Two toddlers?"

"…we realized that he was the one worth keeping, while you were just a burden who would never amount to anything and would just be getting in the way. So we sent you off to live with my sister and her family."

Harry was shocked to find himself thinking that maybe the Dursley's (well, Aunt Petunia anyway) hadn't been so horrible after all. This revelation with his parents certainly wasn't matching up with anyone's description of them that he'd spoken to in the past. That saying he'd heard about only remembering the good qualities of dead acquaintances must have been truer than he'd have ever guessed. Except that they weren't dead, which meant...what exactly?

"Okay, so hold on a second," he spoke up again. "If you're both still alive, how did I…_Daniel_ stop Voldemort? Dumbledore told me the only reason I…_we_ survived was because Mom cast some sort of powerful magic by sacrificing herself for us."

It was Daniel's turn to speak again. After laughing arrogantly, of course. "Well my worthless brother who most definitely isn't the real Boy-Who-Lived, I'll admit that there's nothing I like more than tooting my own horn, unless it's someone else tooting it for me-"

Hermione and Ginny began trying to push past one another.

"-and since you're so dead set on playing stupid about all this, I guess it gives me the perfect opportunity to do just that. The fact is, I didn't need help from Mom or anyone else to defeat Voldemort, because…" He took a moment to puff out his chest. "I'm a direct descendant of the four Hogwarts Founders, as well as Merlin, Morgana, Baba Yaga, the Scarlet Witch and the Witch of Endor, whose real name was Emma, if I'm not mistaken."

Harry looked less than convinced. "Assuming that's even a little accurate, wouldn't that mean that I'm a direct descendant of them all too?"

"Nope, just me."

"And how does that work?" he demanded, growing irritated.

"Magic, Harry. Magic."

Harry felt a headache coming on.

"And so you see, you useless sack of worthless, with so much latent magical power coursing through my veins since the day I was born, it was really a foregone conclusion. Voldemort busted down the door and marched up to our room. Of course, I felt him coming from a mile away and, knowing what needed to be done, placed myself between you and him and-"

"Excuse me, Daniel?" Luna spoke, causing the boasting boy to scowl.

"Luna, you know how much I hate being interrupted while I'm talking about myself."

The blonde girl nodded. "Yes, but I just thought I should tell you that you're going to be hit by a runaway trunk if you don't move."

Daniel blinked in confusion. "Runaway tru-?"

And then he was hit by a runaway trunk with enough force to be thrown from the platform to the rails beyond.

That's when the Hogwarts Express decided to show up.

Everyone stared, mouths agape in horror as bits and pieces of Daniel Bartholomew Potter rained down and splattered across the station.

Harry was the first one to break the long silence. "Huh. Did you guys ever notice that there's no actual conductor for the train? That's sort of weird that a magic-powered train would run late, isn't it?"

"Oh Hecate's love-handles! He's dead!" Lily screamed. "My only son that I care about is dead! DEAD!"

As everyone else, nix Harry, joined Lily in cries of anguish, a thunderstruck Ron turned to Luna. "How the bloody hell did you do that?"

"Do what?" the spacey Ravenclaw asked.

"How did you know that he was going to get hit by a runaway trunk like that?" he clarified. His eyes widened. "Are you…are you some kind of seer?"

Luna shook her head. "No. It's just that I saw Neville trip as he was running through the platform gate and his trunk ended up heading straight toward-"

"Bloody Hell! A real live seer!" Ron declared, staring at her in awe. "Oh, oh! Are the Cannons going to win their next game?"

"I don't know, I'm not a seer," she insisted.

"Oh come on, don't hold out on your friends, Luna! Just tell me this one thing and I'll never ask you to abuse your wonderful gift again! Promise!"

"Honestly, I'm not…"

Ron was starting to look murderous in his desperation to learn the one great mystery of life.

"…Yes. The Cannons will win their next game."

"WOO! I'm gonna be rich! I'll mail dad tonight and tell him to bet everything we have on it!"

As Luna was shaking her head in pity, Harry felt he should do something to comfort his parents in their moment of need. They were his parents, after all. …His parents who were supposed to be dead and for some reason hated him a lot more than he'd ever been led to believe, but his parents nonetheless.

But as he reached for the shoulder of his kneeling mother, she suddenly shot back to her feet.

"Wait just a minute! According to the prophesy that Albus showed us, the Boy-Who-Lived is only supposed to die by You-Know-Who's hand."

The same thing seemed to be dawning on James as well. "But, if Daniel is dead…and it wasn't because of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named…then…that would mean that…"

Slowly everyone turned to stare at Harry.

"Yo," he said with a small wave.

The two letters were barely out of his mouth before he was rushed and smothered by his parents, while the rest of the collective shamefaced onlookers decided they should probably give the family some time alone to reunite.

"Oh my poor son!" Lily wept as she crushed him fiercely. "How could I have ever been so blind! Whatever were the odds that the son we both paid all out attention to would really be a glory-hogging prick who would deceive everyone around him and force you to live an unloved life in his shadow?"

James nodded, patting Harry on the shoulder. "Yes, but now that we know the truth of the matter-"

"You shut your damn mouth, you bastard!" Lily shouted, causing both Potter males to recoil in shock.

"Wha-?"

"Because of you I was forced to give up my own beloved son," she continued, full of righteous(?) feminine fury. "I'll never forgive you for the way you treated him!"

"B-but you treated him just the same as me!" James argued. "And you were the one who decided to send him away to your sister's!"

"That's because _you_ were planning to just leave him laying in a ditch in the middle of nowhere! At least getting him away from you and giving him to my sister would increase his chances for survival!"

"Actually-"

"Not now, Harry dear," Lily interrupted, not taking her glaring eyes away from James. "Well I've had enough of you, and I'm not allowing your terrible influence to further traumatize my son anymore!" As she began leading a too-mentally-exhausted-to-care-anymore Harry away, she shouted back over her shoulder to him. "And you can expect the divorce papers by the end of the week!"

xxx

Far away, Severus Snape had the sudden urge to dance a little jig.

xxx

"I'm sorry that things turned out this way, Harry," Lily told him as he stashed his trunk on the train. "First seeing your brother brutally killed right in front of you-"

"Eh," he shrugged.

"-and now your bastard father abandoning us like that-"

"Um..."

"But none of that matters now, because we still have each other. And from this moment on, I'm going to do everything I can to prove what a good mother I can really be."

Now that, Harry could get behind, but he wasn't going to get his hopes up yet, seeing as how the woman still seemed a bit unstable.

"And the very first thing I'm going to do to prove myself is introduce you to a sweet young girl that I just met a little while ago. I had intended to introduce her to your brother, but I'm sure you'll love her just as much as he would have."

"Uh, that's nice, Mum, but you don't have to do that. I mean, I kind of already have a girlfriend-"

"Oh, don't worry, dear. I just know she'll be perfect for you." She pointed off to the side. "Look, that's her right over there."

"Really Mum, I don't think-"

Then he saw who his mother had presented before him and his mind turned to mush. She was gorgeous. So gorgeous that he completely forgot all about that generic Tracy Davis. So gorgeous that even the magical oath he'd taken with Tracy couldn't blame him for it and let him off the hook without turning him into a squib. That gorgeous.

There was certainly nothing generic about her. In fact, she may well have been the most un-generic woman you ever met. Even the author didn't know where to begin with describing her for fear that mere words would never be able to do her justice, so he decided to not even attempt it.

Just try to imagine how unbelievably gorgeous she had to have been, then multiply your own expectations by ten and you'll be in a ballpark range of it.

Harry tried not to step on his own tongue as he stumbled over to her. Lily, satisfied that she'd redeemed herself in her son's eyes, left to give them some privacy. She had other things to take care of anyway. Now that she was no longer with James, perhaps she could get back together with Severus. Or maybe she would give Remus a call. Or perhaps Gildroy would like some female companionship at St. Mungo's. Or maybe Lucius had finally gotten tired of that frigid bitch Narcissa. Or…

Harry fidgeted nervously as the angelic-veela-love-goddess turned to meet him. "Um…hi," he greeted shyly.

"Hello," she responded in a voice so perfectly-heavenly-sexy-luscious that it alone could cause premature ejaculation to just about any man in hearing distance. Consequentially, eight men had to sneak away to change their pants.

"I'm Harry. What's your name?" he asked, trying to imagine what sort of perfect name could possibly compliment someone so-

"Gertrude."

-unbelievably… "Pardon?"

"But my friends all call me Gertie," she added.

Okay, so no one could be completely perfect. Not a problem. "So, uh…I don't remember seeing you around Hogwarts before. Are you some kind of exchange student or something?" He didn't recall Hogwarts having any sort of Exchange Student Program, but he was too distracted by all the sexy to consider that minor detail.

The girl looked confused. "Hogwarts? This isn't the station to Beauxbatons?"

Harry looked equally confused. "That's in France."

Gertrude pouted. Adorably. "Phooey. I knew I shouldn't have apparated past the Eiffel Tower. Now I'll barely have time to reach the station before the train leaves!" She smiled blindingly at Harry. "Well, it was nice meeting you." And then she was gone, almost as if she hadn't been anything more than some cheap plot device all along, leaving nothing behind but a giant hole in poor Harry's heart.

Oh, the heartbreak!

Oh, the despair!

Oh well, whatever. More importantly, he needed to go make sure his friends were back to being his friends in this strange twisted world he appeared to be stuck in.

xxx

xxx

Can one of you wonderful readers do me a favor? Could you possibly point me in the direction of a Brother-Who-Lived fic that DOESN'T resemble the scene I wrote up there (before the death, that is)? You know: one without a glory-hogging douchebag brother, neglectful asshole parents and a Harry who's angry and bitter because everyone's being mean to him? Please? Because I'd really, really like to read at least one of them that doesn't follow that stupid over-saturated formula.

And if one doesn't exist, honestly it wouldn't surprise me.

PS: Why is it always Lily who gets redeemed in these stories but rarely ever James? I assume those writers are Snape sympathizers or something, but I can't say that for certain.

PSS: Are you noticing a trend with the names of OCs yet (Aside from the Mary Sue)?

Til next time.

LL


	4. Chapter 4

So, I checked out 'Harry Potter and The Boy Who Lived', which several of my reviewers directed me toward. Overall, I'd say not bad, though I have to agree with Loki Fenrisulf IV in saying that the two brother's characters were basically reversed (Harry equaled OC, while OC equaled Canon-Harry), which was rather disappointing. But, it did meet the requirements that I set out, so I can't complain too much.

In other news, thanks to all the readers and reviewers of this story. Glad to know you're enjoying it so far, especially since I'm pretty much making it all up scene by scene as I go along.

Now back to it. Enjoy.

xxx

xxx

No sooner had Harry reached the compartment housing his usual group of friends did Hermione pounce on him.

"Oh Harry, I'm so sorry about the way everyone's been treating you all this time! Calling you names and treating you worse than the deformed offspring of a House Elf and a goblin all because your despicable brother lied and made everyone believe that he was a real hero instead of you! But I just want you to know that I've always believed in you, no matter what anyone else said!"

Ginny knocked the older girl out of the way. "I'm very sorry too, Harry. And to show you just how sorry I am, I brought you a butterbeer."

Harry tentatively took the bottle offered to him. "Thanks, Ginny."

"You should drink it right now," she said, staring at him expectantly. "Before it gets warm."

Harry glanced at the bottle then back to the redhead. "Nah, that's okay, I'm not that thirsty. I'll just save it for later."

"...Drink the love potion."

"What?"

"Drink the butterbeer."

"Oh. Thought you said something else."

Ron got up and dragged his sister off of Harry, helping him up and into a seat. "So, uh…" he started, trying to find the best words to use for such a situation. "Well, we've all said some things that we now regret, right? So what do you say we just forget that these last five years ever happened and start as friends again?"

It wasn't at all difficult for Harry to forget about the last five years, since they appeared to be completely different from the last five years as he knew them anyway. "Sounds good to me."

Ron grinned. "Awesome. And uh, by the way: you mind if we call you Daniel? You know, at least until the shock wears off?"

"I would... prefer you didn't."

xxx

Someone was knocking at the door.

Lord Voldemort found this rather odd, as there was only a very select few who knew the location of his secret headquarters. And the few who did know about it also knew about the secret knock that was to be used to prove who they were. Whoever this was wasn't using that secret knock at all. In fact it wasn't even so much a knock as it was a particularly annoying pounding that seemed designed to irritate anyone around to hear it.

Equally annoying was that no one else was here to answer the door for him. He grumbled darkly as he stood from his throne of mudblood skulls and walked to the door. If only he hadn't been forced to kill the three Death Eaters that he'd left stationed here due to their overwhelming incompetence, he wouldn't be stuck doing this crap himself.

Gripping his wand, he flung open the door, and was momentarily stunned to find a young girl standing before him.

"Hello, Dark Lord-sama," she greeted him in a voice that grated even further on his nerves. "My name is xXxHarryHeartsSeverusxXx."

"..." Voldemort ...'ed.

"I have written a list of One Hundred Ways to Totally Annoy Dark Lords and I'm here to test them all out on you to see if they're accurate!" So saying, the girl pulled out a long piece of parchment and began to read. "Number 1: Calling you things that sound like your name, but are actually hilarious insults. For example: things like 'Voldywarts', or 'Moldyshorts', or-"

"Crucio."

Voldemort watched with a look of mild entertainment as xXxHarryHeartsSeverusxXx finished twitching on the floor like someone who'd just stepped on a livewire. He waited until her eyes refocused again before speaking. "I'm sorry, that was rude of me. Please, continue."

Staggering back to her feet, she nodded nervously. "R-right. Um...N-number 2: Making insinuating remarks concerning the relationship between you and Orochimaru from Naruto-"

"Crucio."

As she flailed about like a fish on dry land, Voldemort casually crossed his arms. "Well, I must say so far I'm impressed. You're only two ways into your list and already I'm finding myself quite annoyed."

With considerably more trouble this time, the girl fought her way back to her feet. Unsurprisingly, she wasn't looking all that enthusiastic about her little project anymore. "W-w-well uh...I think...I think that's enough testing for one day-"

"Oh?" He-of-Many-Hyphenated-Nicknames asked in mock disappointment. "But we still have ninety-eight more ways of annoying me to go. And I'm ever so excited to hear _**all of them**_."

xXxHarryHeartsSeverusxXx began to sweat. "Um, well see, t-the thing is, I kind of put off doing my Algebra assignment that's due tomorrow in order to make this list, so I really should be getting home to finish that. So maybe, uh...ma-maybe some other time." She turned back to the door, only to see it slam closed in her face and bolt itself shut.

"Oh no, no, no," Voldemort told her, his face finally splitting into a dark smirk. _**"I insist."**_

Looking back on it now, the poor girl really wasn't sure why she thought purposely setting out to annoy one of the most powerful and evil wizards in all of Europe was a good idea.

xxx

After traveling for a while, Ron and Hermione left to take care of their Prefect duties. Ginny left shortly after upon realizing that Harry wasn't going to be drinking his love-butterbeer, leaving Harry alone in the compartment. The shaggy haired boy used the moments of peace to silently pray that things would finally go back to normal now that he was on his way back to Hogwarts.

"Potter!" a pompous voice rang out as the door flew open.

"Thank you," Harry mumbled under his breath, for once actually feeling a little happy to be bothered by Draco Malfoy. At least it was familiar.

"I have something very urgent that I must speak with you about," Draco explained as he sat down across from Harry.

Harry hung his head. Oh Merlin, the ponce was being civil. Couldn't anybody in this alternate universe act the way they were supposed to?

"What is it, Malfoy?" he asked, just wanting to get the situation over with.

"I need you to marry me."

Nothing was said for about thirty seconds. Oh, Harry tried to say something several times. He would lift his hand up, open his mouth, freeze for a second, lower his hand back to his lap and close his mouth without a sound over and over. He glanced out the window, noted that the sky was still blue and turned back to the floor. Finally, he looked up at Draco.

"No."

Draco sighed. "You don't understand, Harry," (Oh Gandolf, he called me 'Harry'!) "This is literally a matter of life and death for me."

"Ah, well in that case, Hell No."

"Look Harry, I've recently come to the realization that you're my one true love. In hindsight, I don't know why I didn't see it sooner. I mean, it was so bloody obvious! But I digress, I'm running out of time here and I really need you to bind yourself body and soul to me as soon as possible before I die."

Harry took a moment to let that sink in. It didn't.

"Okay, explain that to me again," he requested. "Only this time, pretend I'm a complete idiot."

Showing a patience not oft seen in the blonde git, Draco nodded and started from the beginning. "Well Harry, as I'm sure you're well aware of by now, I'm a Veela, and therefore I-"

He was cut off as Harry held his hand up with his palm out forward. He then stood up and silently exited the compartment. Moments later, Draco heard several muffled thumps before The-Boy-Who-Lived-In-Hell returned with a small line of blood trickling down his face, and calmly sat back down.

"Go on."

"Therefore I've begun searching for my One True Love, since, as a Veela, I'll never be truly happy unless I find, bind my soul to, and marry my One True Love. Now, all of my natural Veela senses are telling me that you, Harry, are my One True Love, and now that I've become aware of it, I must performing the binding ritual with you as soon as possible or risk dying of a broken heart."

Harry remained in a hunched over position, but nodded slightly. "Okay... Now I have a couple of grievances with what you just said."

Draco frowned. "Like what?"

"Well, first of all: You are not a Veela. And second of all: Everything else you just said."

"I am so a Veela," Draco insisted.

"I'm just about positive that you're not," Harry refuted.

"I am."

"What side of your family did you get it from, then?" he challenged.

Draco brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Was your mother a Veela?" Harry prompted.

"No," Draco answered, sounding almost insulted by the question.

"Your father, then?" Harry wasn't at all certain that there ever were male Veela, to be honest, since the only ones he'd ever seen had been female. But, then again, after everything else that he'd experienced over the last several weeks, the gender specifications of Veela only ranked about number 14 on his Weird Shit List.

"Of course not, Potter! My parents are members of two of the oldest Pureblood families in history! You know that!"

"So then in what sense are you a Veela!"

"Because I have a Thrall," was the simple answer.

"...No, you don't."

Draco smirked. "Actually, you only _think_ I don't because you're the only one not affected by it. Watch." He got up and flung the door to the next compartment open. "Hi, everyone."

"Hi, Draco~!" Every boy and girl inside greeted amidst lots of swooning, drooling and giggling.

Harry felt himself die just a little at the display.

Draco closed the door and turned back to him. "But then there's you, Harry." He then clasped his hands behind his head and began gyrating his hips. "Does this do anything for you?"

"...Besides make me want to projectile vomit? No."

Draco flung his shirt off and began tweaking his nipples. "How about this?"

Harry turned a distinct shade of green. "Seriously, I'm going to puke if you don't stop."

Draco spun around, planted his hands against the wall and thrust his rear out. "And this? Don't you just want to shove me against the wall and bugger me until I can't-"

"NO! Glinda the Good Witch, NO!"

"Well that's my point exactly! That proves we're soul-mates!" the blonde boy declared.

Harry's head dropped into his hands. "Okay Malfoy, here's the thing. I haven't had a very good day, or month for that matter. ...Let's be honest, my whole life has sucked, but this last month has left me with a headache that might not ever go away, and your delusional man-crush on me isn't helping in the slightest. So what do you say we drop the whole Veela and Thrall and Soul-mate talk and we can just go back to hexing, insulting and humiliating each other like we always do?"

"Oh, don't worry Harry, there'll be plenty of time for all that after we're married."

"...I'm gonna leave. I'd appreciate it greatly if you didn't follow me."

"B-but what about our binding?"

Harry headed for the door. "Not gonna happen."

Draco cried out in agony and clutched his chest. "Rejected by my One True Love! Oh my heart! Oh woe is me! Oh what a world!"

After about twenty seconds filled with enough melodrama to make a soap-opera star cringe, Draco flopped to the ground, spasmed once, and went still.

Five seconds later, he tilted his head up, saw that Harry was still staring at him, and quickly went back to being 'dead'.

"...Maybe the Hufflepuffs are still normal," Harry muttered as he left the compartment.

xxx

Harry quickly realized that he had no way of knowing if any Hufflepuffs were acting normal, because he had no idea how any of them acted to begin with. Hell, he barely remembered any of their names. They were only Hufflepuffs, after all, who actually cared about them?

Thankfully, the train finally arrived at Hogwarts and Harry was able to meet back up with Hermione and Ron.

"I had the creepiest meeting with Malfoy while you two were gone," he informed them as they dragged their trunks off the train.

"Lucky you," Ron grumbled.

"Mm, Draco," Hermione sighed.

"...Gonna ignore that. Anyway, he-"

But before he had the chance to elaborate, two Aurors appeared directly in front of them, wands drawn.

"Not so fast, you three," one of the men growled. "We've been investigating the recent killing of one Daniel Potter."

His partner moved forward. "We'd like to ask the three of you some questions."

Harry shrugged. "Sure, I-"

"It was him!" Ron shouted, gesturing wildly at Harry.

Harry looked back at him in shock. "Wha-?"

"He was always jealous of Daniel!" Hermione shouted over him.

"Huh!"

"I never trusted him!" Ron added.

"Yeah, I knew from the moment I first met him he was no good!" Hermione added on top of Ron's add-on.

Harry was perplexed. "The bloody Hell is wrong with you two?"

"Don't talk to us, murderer!" Ron commanded.

"Bastard!" Hermione screamed.

"Traitor!"

"Rapist!"

"Child-molester!"

"Death Eater!"

"I am NOT a Death Eater!" Harry shouted. "...Or anything else-"

The two Aurors placed their hands on his shoulders. "We suggest you come along quietly, Sir."

"But-but-but-"

"Though personally, I like it better when they DON'T come quietly," the second man smirked menacingly.

Harry's body sagged and he allowed himself to be led away. He couldn't understand why his best friends would betray him like that, but there wasn't much he could do at the moment.

Oh well. He'd at least get the chance to clear his name in court. He had confidence that the wizarding legal system would see him through this.

xxx

Ten minutes later, in an Azkaban cell...

"Well shit."

xxx

xxx

Everybody loves Draco, whether they like it or not. That includes you, whether you like it or not. Sad fact of fanfiction, I know, but what can you do?

Also, I'm almost positive that nobody on this site actually has the pen-name xXxHarryHeartsSeverusxXx. If someone actually does use that as a name, just know that the Voldemort scene wasn't intentionally aimed at you. Unless your name is xXxHarryHeartsSeverusxXx AND you've written a lame list of ways to annoy and/or kill a Harry Potter character, in which case it was totally aimed at you and you should be ashamed. Seriously.

Next Time: So, Harry is betrayed and sent to Azkaban for something he didn't do. Doesn't anybody actually NOT know what usually happens next?

Til then.

LL


	5. Chapter 5

After a brief pause... Moar. Big thanks to **Shadow Crystal Mage** for pointing out one of the cliches used in this chapter to me. And another thanks to all the other readers and reviewers; you guys/gals are pretty awesome, you know that?

xxx

xxx

The door to Albus Dumbledore's office flew open, and the old wizard looked up to see Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape enter, both panting like they'd ran the entire length of the caste getting there. Or possible just finished dancing an enthusiastically joyful dance.

"Ah Minerva, Severus, what brings you both here?" he greeted. He reached over and held up a crystal goblet. "Care for a lemon drop?"

"No, thank you, Albus," the two professors answered duly.

Dumbledore seemed disappointed. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, Albus," they mirrored each other again.

Albus glanced down at the yellow candies, then back at them, looking about ready to pout. "They're really quite good, you know?"

McGonagall nodded placatingly. "I'm sure they're delicious, Albus. Unfortunately we have something much more important to tell you."

"Oh? And what might that be?" the old man inquired, setting the goblet aside.

"Lily finally left that bastard James!" Snape announced like a child at Christmas.

"I was referring to the matter of Daniel, Severus," McGonagall stage-whispered to him.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you meant important to _me_," he shot back.

"What's this about Daniel?" Dumbledore prompted to forestall an argument.

"He's dead," Snape stated as bluntly as possible.

Had Dumbledore anything in his mouth, it would have hit the far end wall. "What?"

McGonagall nodded, looking grim. "It happened at the Platform. He was hit by the Hogwarts Express."

Dumbledore looked as though he'd been stabbed in the back. "This can't possibly be. The Prophecy clearly stated that only Voldemort could kill The-Boy-Who-Lived, which can only mean one thing."

"Yes," McGonagall nodded. "We've both come to the same conclusion, Albus."

"Somehow, Voldemort commandeered the Hogwarts Express and used it to run Daniel down."

"Ye- no, what?"

"Obviously, Voldemort was driving the train when it ran down Daniel. It's the only thing that makes sense," Dumbledore clarified, nodding to himself as he did so.

The two House Heads glanced blankly at one another. "Albus, nobody drives the Hogwarts Express. It runs on magic."

Dumbledore's face went blank for a moment. "Of course it does. Well then, it's obvious that Voldemort had the Hogwarts Express Imperiused to do his bidding."

"You can't Imperius inanimate objects, Albus," Snape told him, sounding as though he were talking to a child.

"Really?" Dumbledore asked, looking genuinely surprised. "Not even if they're magical inanimate objects?"

"Not even then, Sir."

Frowning deeply, Dumbledore stood up and began to pace anxiously. _This isn't good. If The-Boy-Who-Is-Supposed-To-Still-Be-Alive is dead, and not even by Voldemort's hand, then that would mean my master plan, which I've spent the last fifteen years secretly concocting, has been completely ruined!_

"And what master plan would that be, Albus?"

Dumbledore whirled around, shooting Snape a look of severe disapproval. "Severus, I will thank you to not go reading my mind like that ever again."

"I wasn't reading your mind, Albus. You were speaking out loud," the greasy-haired jerk-with-a-heart-of-pyrite stated.

Dumbledore looked bemused. "Was I?" he asked, turning to McGonagall for confirmation.

"You were," she nodded.

"Ah." He stroked his beard for a moment. "Then I shall thank you both to kindly forget that you ever heard me say anything at all."

The two professors shared another confused look at their Headmaster's odd behavior, but decided to look past it for now. Whatever he was going through and whatever this 'master plan' of his might be, he would inform them in time. After all, if you couldn't trust Albus Dumbledore, who the Hell could you trust?

"The point I was trying to make, Sir," McGonagall said, bringing things back to the matter at hand. "Was that we may have made a grave mistake about the Potter boys. It's very possible that all this time, Harry has been the real Boy-Who-Lived."

"For-Attention," Snape mumbled to himself. He chuckled; yes, he'd have to use that one in class where everyone could hear it.

Dumbledore was silent for a brief moment before his eyes began to twinkle. "That's brilliant, Minerva! We'll simply tell the Wizarding World that Harry was the Boy-Who-Lived all along! One Potter child is just as good as any, after all, and it will stop Voldemort from thinking that he has us at a disadvantage now! Fifty points to Gryffindor!"

"But Sir, I'm a professor," she argued.

"From Gryffindor," he justified himself with a nod.

"Headmaster's pet," Snape grumbled.

"Sallow git," she retorted.

Albus ignored their squabbling as he thought of his new predicament and how he could turn it back into his favor.

_Perhaps this is for the best. Harry could work out much better for my master plan than Daniel, anyway. After spending his whole life abused and unloved, his need for attention and affection will have him following my every word without question. It's perfect!_

The clearing of throats caught his attention again. "That wasn't out loud again, was it?" he asked.

"It was, Albus," Mcgonagall confirmed.

"Odd," he muttered. Perhaps he should stop by the hospital wing later. "Ah, but never mind that. I'll need to speak with Harry as soon as possible. Where is he now? The Welcome Feast, I presume?"

Before either professor could answer, an owl flew through the window and dropped a roll of parchment on the old man's desk. Recognizing the Ministry owl, Albus grabbed and unrolled the paper and quickly scanned the message scrawled on it.

"...Well, shit."

xxx

Time passed.

He couldn't be sure how much time had gone by. Hours, days, weeks, months, time didn't seem to have much meaning in this hellhole.

He'd long since forgotten what it felt like to be outside. Out there where it was so full of life and vibrance and joy. Where he could breathe the air and not gag on the stench and taste of death and decay and misery.

Instead, here he sat, alone with nothing but his thoughts for company.

His thoughts, and the talking Crumple-Horned Snorkack named Lenny who had appeared in his cell not too long ago.

"They betrayed you," Lenny the snorkack whispered to him. "They sent you here to rot."

"I know," Harry sighed, slumped in the corner with his head buried in his arms. "But why? How could they do this to me, Lenny? I thought they were my friends."

"They were never your friends," the little beast scoffed. "They just wanted you for your fame! Your money! Your power and your influence! And once they had all that, they tossed you aside like so much squalor."

"But...they don't have those things yet," Harry tried to rationalize, though he didn't seem so sure anymore. "Do they?"

Lenny shrugged. "Well, I'm just a wild figment of your addled imagination, but I'm going to say yes, they do have them."

"Those bastards! I'll kill them!" His indignant fury doesn't last long before another thought occurs. "Actually, I've never cared about power or money, and my fame has brought me nothing but misery. Hell, those guys can have it all if they want, I certainly won't miss any of it."

"Weasley probably took your Firebolt, too," Lenny considered lightly.

"THOSE BASTARDS! I'LL KILL THEM!"

"Yes, that's exactly what you'll do," the devious creature agreed. "But it's not enough to just kill them. After all the suffering they've put you through, it's only proper that you make them suffer just as much before ending their misery."

"Yeah," Harry agreed with a sharp nod.

"So what we need to do is find a way to get out of here and make back the money that you've lost. You're going to need it in order to carry out your plans."

"Yeah," he nodded again.

"Once that's taken care of we can start finding allies that you know you can trust, who won't betray you like your old friends did."

"Well, there's always Luna," he suggested.

"That nut-job?"

"Nut-job? She's one of the only people I know who actually believes you exist!"

"Well yeah, but she also believes in Moon Frogs, for Houdini's sake! I mean, Nargles are one thing, but Moon Frogs? No, I was actually thinking someone like your mom would make a good ally to have."

"Are you... sure about that?"

"Absolutely, why wouldn't I be?" Lenny asked.

"It's just that, when I spoke to her at the station she seemed like she maybe wasn't all there."

The snorkack shook its head. "Harry, if you can't trust your own mom, who can you trust?"

Harry thought about that. "I...guess."

"Right. Okay then, we should also recruit Nymphadora Tonks, and definitely Fleur Delacour."

"Okay," those seemed like rational choices: an Auror who could shapeshift and a fellow Triwizard champion, sure. And they both seemed to be on his side last time he checked.

"Then we'll need Susan Bones. And both Patils."

"Susan I can kind of understand, what with her aunt being so high up in the Ministry, but why the Patils?"

"Twin Magic, Harry," Lenny explained as though it were obvious, but by the look on Harry's face, wasn't. "And let's not forget Daphne Greengrass-"

"Who?"

"-Su Li-"

"Who?"

"-Katie Bell-"

"Why are you only suggesting girls?" he finally demanded.

Lenny looked at him like he was nuts, which apparently he was considering he was arguing with a talking crumple-horned snorkack. "What do you mean? You're not actually hoping to have _men_ in your harem, are you?"

"Harem? I thought we were looking for allies!"

"Well yeah; allies for your harem, of course. All Evil Overlords who are serious about taking over the world need a harem. Why do you think nobody outside of Britain takes Voldemort seriously?"

"...And when the bloody Hell did we go from taking revenge on my friends to taking over the world?"

Lenny reared back on his back legs in order to shrug. "Just seemed like the next logical step to me, don't you think?"

Harry heaved a deep sigh, realizing he'd been doing that a lot recently. "Can we just focus on the vengeance part of this plan and leave harems and world conquests alone for now?"

"Whatever. It's real simple, Harry: Escape, get money, get...allies, and once you've secured yourself, that's when you go on the attack. You find out all you can about them and what they've been up to while you were wasting away in here. Then, little by little you take from them: steal them blind, ruin their livelihoods, turn their families against them. And finally, when there's nothing left to take, and they find themselves cowering pitifully at your feet, their eyes begging the question "Why, oh Merciful Gargamel, Why?", that's when you look into their eyes and say-"

"My name is Edmond Dantes?" Harry deadpanned.

"...Beg pardon?"

"That sounds remarkably similar to the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo."

"...I'm certain I have no idea what you're talking about."

Harry stared down at him, highly skeptical.

"Anyway, before anything else can be done, we need to escape from this hellhole," the crumple-horned critter continued.

"And how are we going to do that?" Harry wondered.

"Don't you worry, I'll have us out of here before you know it."

The cell door swung open, the small amount of light it let in causing Harry to cringe. A large guard walked into the room. "Mr. Potter, you're free to go."

"I'll never doubt you again, Lenny," the boy muttered.

"Excuse me?" the guard asked.

"How long has it been?" he countered him quickly. "How much time has passed since you locked me away in here?"

Bemused, the guard pulled out a pocket watch and flipped the top open. "About eight minutes."

"...S-seriously?"

"Yeah, I know. Sometimes being around so many Dementors can really screw with a person's perception of time. Makes for a nice excuse when you want to take an extra long lunch break, although you usually have to be around them for several weeks before it starts to affect you, unless you're really weak-minded or something."

Harry let that slide. "Right, okay. So you said we can leave?"

"Who's 'we'?"

"Me and Lenny."

"Who's Lenny?" The guard was growing more confused every time the boy opened his mouth.

"He's the Crumple-Horned Snorkack that told me to kill my friends and take over the world with my enormous harem."

The guard stared.

"Wow, that sounds so much more insane now than it did two minutes ago," Harry stated.

"I could probably get someone to reserve you a bed in St. Mungo's if you'd like," the guard offered.

"I think I'll just leave. Get myself some fresh air and I'll be fine."

Together they exited the cell and began their trek to the entrance.

"So why'd they let me go so quickly? Did Professor Dumbledore bail me out?"

The guard shook his head. "No, actually they found your brother's real killer. Sorry for the misunderstanding."

"Real killer...? Wait, you don't mean Nev-"

At that moment, two more guards walked past, opened a nearby cell, and shoved a large trunk inside, where it toppled over, it's contents of various school supplies spilling out everywhere.

Harry stared until the guard put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't you worry, Mr. Potter, that murderous bastard won't be hurting anyone else ever again. I hear he's a repeat offender, so we can probably get him Kissed by the end of the week."

Harry shook his head. Apparently it wasn't just the inmates of Azkaban that went crazy. That fresh air couldn't come quickly enough. And of course, even if Lenny the Snorkack had been a wild hallucination, that didn't change the fact that he would be having words with his..._friends_.

As Harry and the guards walked away, no one noticed the Crumple-Horned Snorkack crawl through the barred window and settle down beside the fallen trunk.

"So, betrayed by your loved ones, were you?"

xxx

xxx

I'm not entirely sure if Dumbledore's lemon drop obsession is an actual cliche or just something I read in a **Rorschach's Blot** fic, but either way I decided to include it.

You know what would be much more interesting to read about than another Evil/Manipulative Bastard!Dumbledore fic? A Crotchety-Old-Fogey!Dumbledore filled with things such as Albus yelling at students to get off his lawn even though he's standing in the Great Hall and no one else is there with him. I'd read the story that has that no matter what the plot was about.

The greatest trick the Crumple-Horned Snorkack ever played was convincing the world that they didn't exist.

More to come when it's written.

LL


	6. Chapter 6

Here we go again, y'all.

xxx

xxx

Someone was knocking at the door.

Again.

And like last time, there was no secret knock. And on top of that, there still wasn't anyone around to answer the stupid door for him.

Voldemort stood up, glancing down at the body of xXxHarryHeartsSeverusxXx, which had finally stopped twitching a few minutes ago, as he walked past. He'd had to give the girl a little bit of credit: There had been about sixteen or seventeen times where she'd genuinely annoyed him with her list, unfortunately the rest had been mostly nonsensical padding. It definitely hadn't needed to be one hundred points long.

He reached the door, drew his wand, opened it, and saw nothing.

"Oh Em Eff Gee!"

Frowning, Voldemort looked further down, where a new young girl lay sprawled on the floor. It almost looked like she was groveling, which he felt was nice and proper, until he noticed the unnaturally grotesque way that her legs were bent in places that should not be able to bend.

They must not have been as bad as they looked, however, since the girl was lifting the top half of her body off the ground and staring up at him with stars in her eyes and a wide smile on her face.

"Are you really Lord Voldemort?" she asked, which would have caused him to raise an eyebrow at the absurdity of such a question, had he any eyebrows to raise.

"This is SO EPIC!" she continued. "I was totally sitting at home watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on Blu-ray, when all of a sudden my TV screen turned into a big ass vortex and I was all like "NO WAI" and then it sucked me into it! The next thing I know I'm like totally falling through the sky and I landed here, and if YOU'RE here, that means I've landed in the freakin' Harry Potter world!"

Voldemort stared at her in silence.

"By the way, when I fell, I fell from really, really high up, so when I landed I broke both my legs," she informed him, gesturing to said broken legs. "Do you think you could use a healing spell on them or something, cuz they're really starting to hurt."

Voldemort almost laughed at the notion that he would have ever wasted his time learning healing spells. Healing was the opposite of hurting, which put it at odds with all his objectives and hobbies.

No, no. As he stared down at her helpless (and for some reason, hopeful-looking. Did this girl have no idea who he actually was?) form, the only appropriate spell he could think to cast would be some sort of... uncontrollable dancing spell. Sadly, he was pretty sure he didn't know any spell like that, either.

Oh well, he'd just have to improvise. He may not get to hear as many delightful screams of agony this way, but it could still be entertaining.

"Imperio."

xxx

After being flown back to Hogwarts, The-Boy-Who-Was-Filled-With-Righteous-Fury made a slow and focused beeline for the Gryffindor common room. Nobody got in his way or even made to draw his attention; the ominous Gregorian Chanting and patches of fire that followed in his footsteps were a pretty good sign that death, horror and torment (not necessarily in that order) were likely to befall anyone who tried. All except for Peeves, who seemed oblivious to the danger as he zoomed down and began pulling faces at Harry.

Harry looked Peeves straight in the eyes.

Half a second later the Poltergeist's body turned to stone, and Filch wept tears of joy.

He continued on, uninhibited until he reached the Fat Lady's portrait, which he ripped right off its hinges using nothing but the strength of his magical willpower, and then entered the hole while the Fat Lady mumbled several obscenities from her position face-down on the floor.

Heads snapped around and all activity stopped when he entered the common room. He glared around the room until his eyes settled on Ron and Hermione, who both appeared to be in the process of choking on their tongues at the sight of him. Harry turned to everyone else.

_**"Out."**_

And everyone got out, not wanting to be around someone who was so angry that he was speaking in bold and italics all at the same time. Once they were alone, he rounded back on his 'friends'.

_**"I want you both to explain exactly why you decided-"**_

"We can't hear you!" Ron shouted.

_**"What?"**_

"He said it's too hard to hear you over all the ominous Gregorian Chanting!" Hermione loudly informed him.

Looking slightly annoyed, Harry waved his wand, canceling out the Evil Ambience Charm he'd cast on himself before entering the school. "Better?"

"Much," they both affirmed.

"Good. Why did you both betray me? I mean, seriously, what the Hell?" he demanded.

Ron found something interesting on the floor to look at, while Hermione picked idly at her sleeve.

"Well, you see Harry," the bookworm began. "I've...learned something really important about myself over the Summer."

Harry frowned. "Go on."

"I...I found out that I'm not really a Granger. I was adopted as an infant. In fact, I'm not even a Muggleborn; I'm the lovechild of Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange."

"And yet you look nothing like either of them," Ron commented lightly, only to fall backward when Hermione glared at him through blood-red eyes.

**"Cut ****me ****off ****again ****and ****see ****what ****happens, ****Blood-Traitor!"** She growled in a voice only slightly less menacing than Harry's had previously been. "Anyway, after they contacted me and told me the truth, Daddy told me-"

"For the love of Zatanna, Hermione, don't ever call him that again," Harry pleaded.

"...Father told me to get you out of his way by any means necessary. I figured leaving you stuck in Azkaban would be much simpler than trying to kill you outright. But now I realize, that even if he is my father, I was still wrong to go along with his plans."

"Really?"

"Of course. I mean, if I help Mother and Father take over the world, that egomaniac is going to take all the glory, get first dibs on all the spoils, and he probably won't even let me rule over Australia even though he knows that's one of my favorite places in the world. Therefore, I've decided that the best course of action for me to take is to continue helping you and The Order in taking down my father. Then, once he's out of the way, I can worry about killing you at my leisure after you've gained enough political leverage for me to usurp in your wake."

"You know, you started off weak, then you were winning me over in the middle, then you lost me at the end again."

"Oh don't worry, Harry, with the way politics work these days, you could still end up living for another thirty years at least before I even bothered to make my move."

"..." With an air of resignation, Harry turned to his other 'best friend'. "And what about you? What's your excuse for betraying me in my time of need, Weasley?"

"...Seriously?" Ron asked incredulously.

"What?"

"Uh, Harry, maybe you haven't been paying attention, but I've betrayed your brother on average of once a year for the last five years. It's what I do. Hell, last year at the Department of Mysteries I tripped him while we were all escaping and left him there for Malfoy and the others. Then you had to show up with all the Order members to ruin everything. I thought I was going to be stuck for at least another year without a Firebolt, thanks to you. And besides, we both know I would never survive in prison. Do you know what the other inmates would do if they found out how much I secretly love to dance?"

Harry let that soak in. It was hard to believe: His best friends were a couple of greedy, jealous, power-hungry, self-serving, backstabbing gits!

Well, obviously there was only one way for him to handle this situation.

"I forgive you."

"Oh Harry!" Hermione cried as she embraced him tightly.

"Thanks a lot, mate! Glad we could put this mess behind us," Ron added while patting him on the back.

"Me too," Harry said, sounding quite tired.

"So we're all friends again?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, the very best," he assured her.

Ron grinned. "Great! And uh, since we're all such great friends, can I still keep your Firebolt?"

"No."

"...Jerk."

xxx

Dumbledore stared out his window, gazing at the grounds in thought. Now that he knew that Harry was safely out of Azkaban and back in Hogwarts, he could now move on to the next stage of his newly refined Master Plan: That of getting Harry securely under his thumb in order to manipulate and guide him at his whimsy.

_But how do I go about gaining the boy's trust? Obviously Harry would be reluctant to trust anyone after being made to feel inferior to his Boy-Who-Lived Brother for all his life, not to mention his recent stint in prison has probably wreaked havoc on the boy's psyche. It was understandable; going through life with no loving friends or family. It's certainly going to take all my cunning and wiles to get Harry to accept everything I tell him at face value without question._

Thankfully, no one was around this time to overhear Dumbledore projecting his thoughts out loud again, except for the many portraits, and they all seemed satisfied with just sharing odd glances among themselves.

_Hmm, wait a minute! No loving friends or family? ...That's it! _

Albus Dumbledore grinned deviously, knowing exactly what needed to be done.

xxx

Someone was knocking at the door. Again again.

Voldemort grumbled and rose once again from his mudblood-skull throne. He stepped around the two motionless bodies on the floor (and he had been right: Making a girl dance on broken legs hadn't been all that entertaining when she didn't have enough control of herself to scream about it, and the screams that had come after he'd canceled the spell had barely lasted at all before she'd slipped into shock.) and opened the door.

He was greeted by a dark and gloomy looking thing.

"Hello, my naame iz Enoby-"

"Reducto!"

The girl stared down at the gaping hole in her torso where her vital organs used to be, then back up at him. "Whatev. Ur juts a dum prep anywayz." Then she collapsed in a dead heap.

Voldemort then set fire to the body, then cast a strong wind spell to scatter the ashes far and away, and went back inside.

xxx

xxx

And there's your obligatory 'My Immortal' reference. Speaking of which, what's with the Parody filter of the Harry Potter section? I try looking for other satires and mockfics like mine and all I find are My Immortal MSTs and "(Insert Character Names) Read the Harry Potter Books" fics. I'm not entirely sure which of the two I find less inspiring, let alone enjoyable to read.

I think we've passed the halfway point with this chapter, as I can't see this story going much further than five or six more chapters, if that. I'll be pulling to finish it all before New Years, so we'll see how badly I manage to miss that deadline.

Til next time.

LL


	7. Chapter 7

This took longer than it should have. On the bright side, apparently someone recommended this story on TVtropes. That's rather flattering. Now let's see if I can get it it's own page. Probably not, but it's something to work toward.

Onward, for great mockery!

xxx

xxx

"And the whole time he just kept insisting that he was a veela."

Now that things had gone relatively back to normal for the Golden Trio, Harry was finally able to regale Ron and Hermione of his run-in with Draco on the train.

"Well, maybe he really is," Hermione replied, feeling strangely compelled to defend the blonde bastard in his absence. "I mean, he is drop-dead gorgeous and so deliciously alluring."

"You know you're talking about the guy who's constantly belittling your talents and calling you a Mudblood, right?"

"You're just jealous that he doesn't have a pet-name for you," she accused him.

Harry couldn't bring himself to even dignify that comment with a response. "How can he be a veela if neither of his parents are one? Also, he's a guy."

"So now you're saying that a man can't be a veela?" she demanded. "That's so prejudiced of you, Harry! I'd expect that sort of thing out of Ronald-"

Ron glanced up from the junk food he was shoveling into his mouth at the sound of his name, then realized it was just Hermione ranting about something and resumed doing what he always did in between being lazy and being a jealous twat.

"-but not from you!"

Harry shrugged helplessly. "Well, all the veela I've ever seen... all three of them, that is... have been girls, you know?"

"Just because you haven't seen a male veela doesn't mean they don't exist, Harry," she reprimanded him sharply. "After all, you've never seen a Crumple-nosed Sorbat before, right?"

"You mean a Crumple-horned Snorkack?"

"Crumple-horned Snorkacks don't exist, Harry. Don't be stupid," Hermione scoffed.

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. "Well, even if he was a veela, and he's NOT, why's he hitting on me of all people?"

"Maybe because you're a lucky prick who doesn't know how to appreciate anything good that comes your way," Hermione muttered.

"What?"

"Maybe because you've grown a lot more buff during the summer and he's taken notice of it."

"Oh. Thought you said something else."

Ron gave his best mate a critical look up and down. "You know, you really have filled out a lot since last year."

Harry glanced down at his obviously well-toned teenaged body, which he could have sworn had been little more than skin and bones the last time he remembered looking at it. "Yeah, I guess I have."

"Must be all that Quidditch you've been playing," the redhead surmised.

"Yes, nothing builds up muscle quite as quickly as sitting on a broom with minimal body movement," Hermione said in what might or might not have been a sarcastic tone. "I think that's how Heracles did it, too."

"Who?" Ron asked.

"Actually, I started jogging over the summer," Harry informed them.

Ron's eyes widened. "Wow, really?"

"Yeah, well you know…couple of times around the block once I'd recovered from the crippling injuries I suffered at the hands of the Dursleys thanks to being rescued by a really generic family whose name I forget. Did a few jumping jacks and some sit-ups afterward. Stuff like that."

His two best friends couldn't hide their admiration. "Blimey, you really went all out this summer, huh?" Ron commented.

Hermione nodded. "You certainly did. I can see the jogging, but jumping jacks and sit-ups on top of that? How did you ever find the time?"

"Or the energy?"

"Or the sheer determination?"

"It wasn't easy," Harry admitted as humbly as always.

"Man, just imagine what you could accomplish if you had a set of weights," Ron pointed out, imagining a Harry of god-like proportions, and subsequently telling himself that the image was in no way salivatingly erotic. Because he certainly didn't swing that way with his best friend. Or with anyone, for that matter. Except maybe Draco; who was too sexy for any straight man to resist. Or Victor Krum, if the star Seeker were to ever show him the time of day...

"Or maybe we could find you someone to teach you the martial arts. After all, knowing how to throw a roundhouse kick can come in extremely handy if you find yourself fighting against someone who's flinging deadly curses at you from several meters away," Hermione suggested, seeing that Ron had lost himself in another fantasy about someone. And it had better have been about her! The last thing she needed was for her unofficial boyfriend, whom she couldn't go any great length of time around without fighting with, to start cheating on her before they even officially started dating. Well, unless it was with someone like Draco or Victor, then she could understand. She herself had fallen asleep over many a library book with visions of being the meat in a Draco-Victor sandwich while the two took turns reciting excerpts from 'Hogwarts: A History' to her...

Harry glanced back and forth between his two friends, who both had acquired a faraway look in their eyes and an unhealthy amount of drool on their chins. "Uh...guys?"

"Mmm, yes. Now tell me about the failed integration of dark elves from 1683. You know that's my favorite..."

"Don't stop searching yet, Vic. The snitch has to be there somewhere..."

Harry decided that now was probably a good time to go to bed. Sometimes he felt that the obsessions his friends had with books and Quidditch respectively were starting to borderline on unhealthy.

As he was headed toward the stairway to the dorm rooms, he was stopped by Lavender Brown.

"Hi Harry," she greeted, presenting him with a rolled up scroll. "The Headmaster asked that I give this to you."

Harry had expected as much. Dumbledore probably wanted to speak with him about his accidental imprisonment, or perhaps about Daniel's death and how it had affected him and whatnot. Maybe he could help explain why nothing in the world made sense anymore. If anyone could answer that for him, it would surely be Dumbledore.

Of course, being able to answer something and actually doing it were two completely different things...

He took the scroll and nodded to Lavender. "Thanks, slut." His eyes immediately widened and he had to imagine that the thunderstruck look on her face probably looked very similar to his own.

"What!"

"Sorry, sorry! I honestly don't know where that came from," he begged off.

Lavender eyed him warily. "...Right, okay."

"Y-yeah, so uh..." He held up the scroll again. "I'm just going to to tart to- I mean tramp to- _talk_ _to_... Professor Dumbledore now."

"Are you insinuating something about me, Potter?" she demanded, her shock being quickly replaced with anger.

"No, no! Nothing that outfit isn't insinuating for me!" This time he actually bit his tongue in hopes of stopping it from saying anything else.

"How dare you! I am not some two knut slag who gives herself to just anyone!"

"I know, I know, honest!" he tried to assure her while also trying to pick his words carefully. "I'm really not meaning these things, I swear. It's just...I've been kind of stressed out lately, and my mind's a bit overwhelmed, you know? I think the best thing for me to do is to just not talk to you anywhore- more! Anymore!"

Lavender was so livid her face was redder than Weasley hair. "I don't care who you are, Potter, I do not have to take this slander lying down!"

Feeling at least five responses battling on his tongue, Harry jammed his knuckles into his mouth and walked away as quickly as possible to keep from voicing any of them.

As he left the room, Lavender stormed off to her dorm room. The nerve of that boy! And here she was planning on being nice and giving him a sympathy shag to cheer him up after his brother's death. Well, that certainly wasn't going to be happening this week!

xxx

Harry ascended the spiral staircase to the Headmaster's room, and entered to find it a bit crowded. In addition to Dumbledore, there were also four students sitting in front of his desk, all holding butterbeers and looking curious and expectant as to why they were even there.

"Ah, Harry my boy," Albus greeted as he swept around his desk to give the boy a hug. "My deepest apologies for what you've been through. Had I known about it before it never would have happened."

"I'm sure I'll get over it, Professor," Harry assured him.

"As am I, Harry," the old man agreed with a nod. "And I'll be right there helping you the whole way. Don't ever be afraid to put your trust in me."

"I won't, Sir."

"And don't even give a second thought to the idea that I might secretly be trying to use and manipulate you for my own nefarious purposes, such as siphoning money out of your trust fund to help support my personal non-government sanctioned army, for example."

"I...never would have thought that, Sir. Although now that you bring it up, I kind of have to wonder-" Harry asked.

"Well don't, because it most certainly isn't true." Dumbledore smiled an eye-twinkly smile. _Oh, __you __are __a __foolish __little __boy, __Harry. __For __unbeknownst __to __you, __I __secretly __AM __trying __to __use __and __manipulate __you __for __my __own __nefarious __purposes, __such __as __siphoning __money __out __of __your __trust __fund __to __help __support __my __personal __non-government __sanctioned __army. __Among __far __worse __things!_

The sound of a throat clearing made him turn around to address one of the students. "Seriously?"

The girl nodded, while the others looked bemused. Cursing softly in exasperation, he turned back to Harry. "Forgive me, Mr. Potter, my Inner Monologue appears to be broken. Do try to forget everything you just heard."

"...Can do, Sir," Harry told him. Honestly, he was already getting pretty good at repressing things that didn't match up with his previously established reality as it was.

Also, he was beginning to find it more and more impossible to continue caring if things didn't add up like they were. There was only so much nonsense the human brain could take before saying enough was finally enough, and he was sprinting toward that fine line as it was. So why bother trying to fight it? If he had a dead brother and living parents, and had friends who hated him and enemies who lusted for him, and the clouds were made of mud and two plus two equaled coconuts now, you certainly weren't going to hear him complaining.

"Wonderful, wonderful," Dumbledore spoke as he directed Harry to the last open seat around his desk. "And with that out of the way, I called you here for a reason, didn't I? But before we get to that, I really must ask-" He produced a crystal jar from his sleeve. "Would anyone like a lemon drop?"

"No thank you, Professor," the gathered students replied.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Professor."

"...They're quite good, you know?"

"Professor, I'd really like to go to bed soon..." Harry all but pleaded.

"Right, right. Moving on." The Headmaster swept his hand around the room. "I've asked you all here on a matter of great importance. Mr. Potter, while you were away in Azkaban, the hearing for your late Godfather's will was held."

"I was only gone for like, fifteen minutes," Harry complained.

"It wasn't a very long will," Albus informed him. "What's important is how the will pertained to you."

Harry went out on a limb. "Did he leave me all his money, his home and surrounding property, and make me the sole heir apparent to the House of Black, making me a certified adult who can use magic whenever he wants now, as well as a nobleman with a high seat on the Wizengamot?"

"No no, nothing like that."

Harry slumped back. "Oh good. Loki forbid something happen that might somehow benefit me," he muttered under his breath. He swore he heard a mental "Indeed" come from the old man, but had already decided that he wasn't going to care.

"What your godfather did leave you, Harry, is a marriage contract, which went into effect immediately after the reading," Dumbledore explained, looking quite pleased at the announcement.

"...So, instead of giving me a mansion or even an heirloom of some kind to remember him by, he forced me to get married?"

"Correct."

"Why would he do that?"

"To my understanding, he was quite drunk at the time." Dumbledore then pulled out several sheets of parchment. "Now, adding your Godfather's contract to the two that your parents made for you-"

"Oh, come on now!"

"They were quite drunk as well, Mr. Potter, it was a hell of a night. And then there's the contract that I just finished signing for you myself-"

_**"What." **_Harry growled without the aid of any Evil Ambience Charm.

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "Yes well, while I may not have been drunk, I can assure you that I wasn't aware of the other contracts when I made mine."

_Little do you suspect that I secretly DID know about the other contracts before I made mine, foolish-!_

"Ignoring that," the old man mumbled irritably, cutting off his own traitorous thoughts. "-allow me to introduce you to your new wives, Harry." He swept his arm out and Harry's gaze followed it to the four other students in the room, all of whom wore expressions ranging from utter confusion to dawning horror and/or intrigue.

"Firstly, I'm sure you're already well acquainted with Miss Alicia Spinnet from Gryffindor." The Chaser shrugged helplessly in his direction, telling him she knew about as much of the situation as he did.

"And Miss Marietta Edgecomb from Ravenclaw." Harry grimaced when the still rash-faced girl shot him a glare that could make a basilisk roll over and die.

"And Miss...Someone Who's Name I Can't Remember At The Moment...from Hufflepuff."

"Su Li," the chagrinned probably-Asian girl grumbled.

"You're welcome," Dumbledore said absently. "And, last but not least, Miss Blaise Zabini from Slytherin."

"I'm a guy!" the outraged Slytherin who did indeed appear to be a bloke shouted.

"I'm almost positive that you aren't, young lady," Dumbledore countered before turning back to Harry, eyes twinkling as they were often wont to do. "Now, the contracts are already filled and signed, so there's nothing that you or your wives-"

"Seriously, I'm a man!"

"-need to do. The marriages are already legal in the eyes of the wizarding world, so the five of you are free to start setting up your proper living arrangements. I realize that Mrs. Spinnet, Edgecomb and...the third one, aren't as well off as most, but I'm sure between your own fortune and that of Mrs. Zabini-"

"I will whip out my junk and wave it around if I have to!"

"-that you'll be able to live in comfort and happiness together." He spread his arms, almost like he was expecting Harry to leap forward and hug him out of sheer gratitude. "What do you think, Mr. Potter?"

Harry glanced around at his new 'wives'. Alicia was busy raising and lowering her hands, weighing the pros and cons of her forced situation with The-Boy-Who-Was-Totally-A-Chick-Magnet, Marietta was gripping her wand and wondering who in the room deserved to be hexed the worst, Blaise was fuming and drinking copiously from two butterbeer bottles at once, then reached for a third when they were empty, and Su Li probably reacted somehow as well.

"You know Professor, with each new revelation that slaps me in the face, I feel a little bit more of my spirit wither away into dust. This-" He gestured around the room. "-isn't helping in the slightest, Sir."

Dumbledore nodded knowingly. "I realize that marriage can be a frightening prospect, but I assure you that things will get easier. And just think, by next year you'll be a father of four-"

"Like Hell!" Everyone except maybe Su Li thundered.

Albus laughed merrily. "In fact, I took some extra steps to ensure that you would be able to start your own families as soon as possible. Very simple, really: I just gathered some of Mr. Potter's magical essence, combined it with one of Professor Snape's strongest fertility potions, and covertly slipped it into your butterbeers."

Spit-takes abounded, all except for Blaise, who could only stare in bug-eyed horror at the three empty bottles at his feet.

"Oh my, triplets for Mrs. Zabini. Marvelous!" Dumbledore cheered. _Marvelous __for __me, __that __is. __For __now __all __I __need __to __do __is __ensure __that __Harry __defeats __Tom __within __the __next __nine __months, __and __after __that __he'll __be __far __too __busy __with __his __new __family __to __even __think __of __interfering __with __my __Master __Plan!_

While the others continued to look horrified, Harry's brain decided that enough was finally enough and shut down, allowing Harry to fall into a deep and completely normal oblivion.

xxx

Well, almost completely normal.

xxx

**Fires raged all around him-**

"No."

**-while screams echoed like-**

"No!"

**-a symphony of Hell. Horrible spell blasts flew-**

"NO!"

**...What's wrong?**

"What's wrong is I'm trying to enjoy my unconsciousness and you're ruining it for me! Stop it!"

**...But, this is supposed to be the Dream Sequence.**

"Don't care."

**But it's the perfect excu...opportunity to foreshadow something awesome that happens later in the story.**

"I'll take my chances of waking up to discover that I'm a Seer. For now, I just want to be at peace."

**But-**

"At! Peace!"

**All right, all right, fine! Just don't complain to me when tragedy strikes and you're not prepared to prevent it!**

Harry sighed happily, and snuggled back into the now truly completely normal oblivion.

xxx

xxx

Fun Fact: Did you know that if a girl is overly affectionate with her boyfriend, or if she has more than one boyfriend before she graduates from school, it means she's a slut? I know, I totally didn't believe it either, but according to popular consensus, that's how it is. Can you imagine my shock when I realized that three-quarters of the girls that I graduated with were sluts? Really changed my perception of my highschool days, I tell you.

Are you noting the sarcasm, because I can't lay it on much thicker.

Brooms will totally buff you up. I swept the floor yesterday and now my shirts don't even fit.

Everyone may love Draco, but sadly, only Hermione and Ron love Victor.

So, Harry's married, Blaise is a mommy, Su Li is...there also, what could possibly happen next? ...I don't know. I'm actually starting to run out of good ideas. I should probably end this soon.

Til next time.

LL


	8. Chapter 8

Happy New Ye- *Sees calendar* - Goddamnit!

On the bright side, one of my readers went ahead and made me a TV Tropes page. Apparently all I had to do was ask. How awesome. Links don't work here, so just go to the site and type the fic title into their search feature. Easy.

As always, thanks again to all you reviewers, alerters and favoriters out there. Now then...

*Raise fist to the sky* Mock ALL the Cliches!

xxx

xxx

Someone was knocking... well, you know.

This time, Voldemort didn't bother moving from his seat, instead choosing to simply roll up his sleeve to activate his Dark Mark, and wonder why he hadn't bothered to do so the last three times this happened.

"Honestly, what's the point of even having a secret lair if any random teenage girl knows how to find it?" he muttered irritably.

A second later, Peter Pettigrew appeared, already on his hands and knees before him. "You called, Master?"

"Answer the door."

Wormtail blinked at the overly mundane request. "B-beg your pardon, Master?"

"I said 'Crucio'."

Wormtail spent the next five seconds squealing like a pig and writhing about on the floor.

"O-o-oh, th-though you s-said something else-se," he whimpered. There was another knock at the door. "I'll j-just answer that n-now, shall I?"

"Yes, do that," Voldemort said absently, already envisioning the different ways that he could torture this new person.

Wormtail stumbled out of the room. When he reappeared a few moments later, it was with a stiff gait and an even more blank than usual look on his face.

"Well?" Voldemort demanded impatiently.

Wormtail stepped to the side, and Voldemort suddenly felt his own mind go blank upon witnessing the creature that had entered his room, haloed by a single ray of sunlight that made it through the doorway.

Much like Gertrude from the train station, the young girl standing before him was simply too beautiful for words, (though, as the author, I suppose I can at least make an effort of it this time.)

She possessed a body that any other fifteen year old girl would commit multiple felonies to have. Not a strand of her straight, silken two-toned hair was out of place as it pooled lusciously down her back, ending just above her rear. And what a rear it was. (Honey had a booty like pow pow pow, if you know what I mean.) And it sat atop of pair of perfectly toned legs that went on for so long a person would have to Apparate from one end of them to the other because walking them would take too long. (If that makes sense.)

In the other direction, her slim waist and flat stomach were accentuated perfectly by her amazingly large and perky breasts; the kind of breasts that most people could only get through really expensive surgery, (or if they were a very talented Metamorphmagus, I suppose. Speaking of which, I can't believe I haven't had Tonks in this story, yet. Although, on the other hand, I already used her in a different mockfic a while back. "Not What You Expected", it was called. Go read it if you haven't already. You might like it. But, I digress...)

She also had perfectly bronzed skin that was softer than satin, and uh...hands that were...um...

(Okay look, I'm really not doing justice to this girl's beauty, but give me a break; I'm not a poet, you know? And besides, she's wearing a robe, so it's not like anyone else could actually see what her body looks like, anyway. On top of that, she's just a random Mary Sue who's only here for plot convenience and most likely won't even be coming back after this chapter. Hell, the only reason I'm going into such detail about her in the first place is because I want this chapter to have a higher word-count so that it will seem longer than what it really is. Don't judge me. Lots of people do it, it's called filler. Or padding. One or the other, I tend to get them confused. Anyway, I'll shut up and get back to the story now, sorry for the interruption.)

None of this really mattered to Voldemort, however. (You see? All that effort, a complete waste of time. I might as well've skipped it all together! Oh, sorry again; last time, promise.) His focus was instead drawn straight to the girl's own eyes. They were incredible: Sparkling like the rarest of jewels, he could clearly make out the many serene and loving emotions dancing about within their golden crimson-blue (yeah, seriously) hues. Sweet Sorcerer Supreme, he could stare into those eyes for the rest of his life and never grow tired of them.

The girl began walking toward him, and without even thinking, Voldemort stood and began moving to her as well, unable to make his legs stop until he was standing a foot away from her.

"Hello, Thomas," she greeted, her angelic voice resonating like a bell (I don't even know what that means, but I've read it in other fanfics, so I'm guessing it's appropriate).

If Voldemort was at all blindingly furious over the misuse of his horrid muggle name, he certainly hid it well behind his blank fixation on dem eyes.

"I'm here to help you, Thomas," she continued after a brief pause. "I know you may not believe me, but I understand all that you've gone through in your life: Never experiencing love and all the wonders it brings, growing up alone and scared and lashing out at the world in anger." She reached out and gently took his hand in her own. "But I can help. I can show you what it's like to feel love, to help you let go of all that hatred and anger, and that there's more to life than death and conquest." She stared even deeper into his eyes, forcing him to do the same in return, and smiling a dazzling smile. "If you'll let me."

Voldemort was silent for several long moments, before a small smile appeared on his face as well.

xxx

Much to his disappointment, Harry did not wake up with newfound seer abilities the next morning.

To his even greater disappointment, he did wake up with newfound somethings else.

He awoke in a groggy haze; apparently blissful unconsciousness wasn't quite as restful as an actual night of sleep. Climbing out of bed and stretching widely, he grimaced slightly at the sudden tightness of his shirt. Thinking little of it, he grabbed his glasses and stumbled for the bathroom, absently sweeping his loose hair behind his shoulder as he went.

After a brief struggle with his nightwear, Harry stood before the loo when he felt that something was missing. Or rather, he didn't feel something, which tipped him off that it was missing. Glancing down didn't help, as the view he was expecting was obstructed by the previously unnoticed 'somethings else'.

With the slow reluctance of a condemned man approaching the gallows, Harry walked to the mirror over the sink.

"Daaamn!" the female reflection gasped in appreciation. "Take a look at us!"

Harry did as he was told, taking a very long look at himself, though it was now more of a 'herself'.

Her hair was longer, though just as unruly as always, making her look like she'd just spent several years lost in a jungle somewhere. Her face had taken on a look and shape more similar to her mother's, though she'd be really surprised if Lily had managed to measure up to her in any other way.

"Hey, turn to the side a little, would you?" her reflection asked eagerly. "I wanna see what we're working with in the back. And maybe hop up and down a few times, while you're at it."

Harry very casually punched the mirror as hard as she could, causing a large spiderweb of cracks to mar it. Mirror Harry tsk'ed and crossed her arms under her breasts in annoyance.

"Less than a day as a woman and you're already cramping, huh?"

Harry lifted her not-bleeding hand and punched it again, shattering it completely this time. She then walked into the shower. As the hot water washed over her, she knew that one thing was for certain: Somebody was going to have to answer for this one.

xxx

Two hours later...

Hermione dropped into a chair with a heavy sigh and an armload of books. "Well, I've thoroughly combed through every book in the library, including the Restricted Section, plus going back over all the books I've ever bought or stolen from Diagon Ally, Hogsmeade and Grimmald Place, and I think I may have come up with one or two somewhat believable reasons for your sudden transformation, Harry."

"Uh-huh."

"One possibility is that you've suddenly become a Metamorphmagus, which honestly is silly because people don't just become Metamorphs, and I'd like to think that someone, you specifically, would have realized that you were one long before now."

"Uh-huh."

"Another possibility is that you've been cursed, either by a spell or potion of some kind. We've already crossed off Polyjuice, seeing as you just look like a female version of yourself and not like someone else."

"Uh-huh."

"But there are still plenty of other excuses for why this happened to you. I've researched a few different spells that can change a person's sex, and I think I might have narrowed down the most likely one, as well as how to reverse it."

"Uh-huh."

"...Unfortunately, the only way to reverse it is for you to have a threesome with Crabbe and Goyle."

"Uh-huh."

"Harry, stop playing with your boobs and pay attention to me!"

Harry slipped her hands out of her shirt and grinned sheepishly. "Sorry. You were saying?"

"What I was trying to say- HARRY!"

"Sorry!" she said, quickly removing her hands again. She stared down at her chest in amazement. "How in the world do you women ever get anything done?"

"We burn out all of our urges during the nightly lesbian orgies in our dorm," Hermione stated dryly.

Ron, who had shamelessly been watching as his friend fondled herself, perked up immediately. "Seriously?"

Hermione fought the urge to facepalm. "Honestly Ronald, do you really believe that I would be having lesbian sex with Parvati? Or Lavender?"

Ron shrugged. "If you aren't, you're probably the only one."

"I am NOT a slut!" Lavender shouted from across the room.

"Well I'm not, Ronald," Hermione went on, ignoring the interruption. "If I were going to be a lesbian with anyone, it would be Fleur Delacour. Or Professor McGonagall. ...Or Bellatrix Lestrange..."

"Isn't she your mom?"

The bookworm didn't respond, as her gaze had lost all focus as she drifted off into a fantasy involving a woman with Fleur's looks, Minerva's brains, and Bellatrix's sadism.

Seeing that Hermione was temporarily beyond reach, Ron turned back to Harry. "So what do you think, mate?"

"I think I'd probably pass on McGonagall or Bellatrix, but I could definitely be a lesbian with Fleur."

"Not at all what I meant, but thanks for putting the image in my head. I mean what are you going to do about being turned into a girl?" the redhead clarified.

Harry shrugged, her expression completely apathetic. "Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"It's not like I even know how or why it happened," she explained. "I don't know how to fix it, I've already decided that I wasn't going to worry about the stupid things that keep happening to me lately, and to tell you the truth, I could think of a lot worse things than being stuck as a girl, especially since there's a really good chance that I'll be back to normal by tomorrow."

"How do you figure that if you don't know how to cure it?" Ron asked.

Harry rolled her eyes. "Magic."

He nodded. "Ah, good point. Although I still would think you'd want to go back to normal as quick as possible before you start lusting after other guys."

That caused Harry to pause in confusion. "Why the bloody Hell would I start lusting after guys?"

Ron made a small gesture toward his gender-bent pal. "'Cause you're a girl now."

"...You think that being turned into a girl is somehow going to alter my sexual orientation, even though I wasn't the least bit attracted to men less than twelve hours ago?"

It was Ron's turn to shrug. "I don't see why it wouldn't."

Harry glared, then jerked her thumb toward Hermione, who still had a goofy grin and thousand-yard stare going on.

"Mm, torture me some more, Mistress."

"She might have issues," Ron noted.

"My point is, whether I have these magnificent breasts or not, I'm still the same Harry that I always was on the inside."

"That's another thing: You should probably come up with a new name for yourself. Harry isn't a girl's name, you know?" Ron pointed out.

"Yeah, I'm not going to do that," she stated firmly.

"Maybe something like 'Harriet'," Ron continued unimpeded. "Or 'Harrina', or 'Henrietta'. Or Debbie."

"Sticking with Harry," she said even firmer.

Ron shrugged. "Okay, but I can't imagine many guys are gonna want to date a woman named Harry."

"Thank you, Professor Finally-Gets-The-Point." Harry stood up. "Can we go to lunch now?"

"What about Hermione?"

The two turned to their other friend.

"Professor, wands aren't supposed to go there..." she mumbled, giggling softly.

"...I think she'll be fine for a while." Harry concluded.

"You didn't happen to wake up with Legillimens abilities, did you?"

xxx

Lucius Malfoy ran into his Master's secret base, having already given the secret knock several times to no response. Fearing that the Dark Lord may somehow be in danger, he blew the door off its hinges, only to find Voldemort sitting calmly on his throne, and the bodies of several young girls strewn about in haphazard and, in some cases, quite painful-looking fashion. He thought to inquire, but held off; there were more important matters at hand.

"My Lord, I bring urgent news!" he claimed as he fell to his knees and bowed until his forehead touched the floor.

"Uh-huh," Voldemort responded.

"Word has come in from our spies that Daniel Potter was murdered this morning at King's Cross!"

"Uh-huh."

"We're still a bit unsure how it happened, but we do know for a fact that The Chosen One is dead, and that Dumbledore has begun spreading rumors that his brother Harry was really the Boy-Who-Lived all along."

"Uh-huh."

"Obviously, Dumbledore and his army are in a state of panic. This seems like it would be the perfect opportunity to launch an attack, before they can regain their senses!"

"Uh-huh."

Frowning, Lucius lifted his head back up, realizing that Voldemort wasn't paying much attention to him. Instead, he seemed much more focused on something he was holding in his hand. "Um, My Lord, what er... what exactly are you... looking at?"

"Eyes," he answered, still distracted by said eyes.

His frown deepening, Lucius glanced around the room, his sight stopping on the body of an indescribably beautiful girl whose eyes had been plucked from their sockets. He shivered.

"I... I see. ...May I ask why?"

"Pretty," The Dark Lord replied.

The blonde man wasn't sure how to take that. He never would have guessed that his Master even knew what the word 'pretty' meant. "Oh. ...May I see them?"

Raising his other hand, a bolt of lightning shot from Voldemort's wand, striking Malfoy in the chest and causing him to join all the other motionless occupants on the floor.

"No," Voldemort muttered. He then went back to admiring his treasures.

xxx

xxx

You know, I originally wasn't going to use McGonagall and Bellatrix for Hermione's fantasies, because I honestly didn't think there would be that many fics of them out there to be worth mentioning. Then I actually did a search for them: Over 300 for Minerva, and over 150 for Bella. I for one, was shocked. Hermione is literally the female Harry of fanfic, isn't she? By which I mean that she apparently can and will be paired with absolutely everyone, even if they're old enough to be her great-grandmother or someone who despises her very existence (and I'm talking about ANY of the Death Eaters, not just Bellatrix). I admit I'm not brave enough to see if there's any romance involving Umbridge. Guh.

And you know what? Now I'm wondering if any of the Hermione/Bellatrix stories out there actually works in a plausible way that doesn't involve any retcons, time-travel, massive OoCness or Stockholm Syndrome. If it's anything like my previous quest for a similar Harry/Bella fic, then probably not, but I guess I won't know for sure unless I look.

Yes, I have a small weakness for (believable) Foe-Yay. Sue me.

Anyway, Harry's gotten in touch with his feminine side and I've run out of Self-Inserts to feed to Voldemort. Where does the 'plot' go from here? Find out next time, which hopefully won't take another 2 1/2 months to finish.

Until then.

LL


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

xxx

xxx

She hadn't even made it to the Great Hall, and Harry was already regretting her decision to leave the Gryffindor House. At the worst, she was expecting some gawking from passing boys who didn't appear to care that she was still Harry Potter. And even though there was plenty of that, she should have known that it wouldn't be that simple.

"Hello, Harry."

Harry muttered a string of curses under her breath, none of them the magical variety. "What do you want this time, Malfoy?"

Draco, decked out in black leather pants and no shirt underneath an open emerald green robe, roved his eyes up and down Harry's new body. "I see you've become a woman, Harry."

"You're hallucinating, Malfoy. I suggest you go back to bed until it passes."

"This is perfect," Draco continued, unfazed. "Now that you're a girl, there's absolutely nothing standing in the way of our loving relationship."

"But what about my ever-growing hatred for you?" Harry asked.

"We can work through that, my love."

"Ever-growing," Harry mumbled to herself. "Look Malfoy, I'm not doing this with you again. You're not a Veela, we don't have a soul-bond, and as much as it saddens me to say, you're not going to die just because I reject you."

"I know."

"...You know?"

Draco nodded. "Yes. You see, it turns out you were right, Harry. I'm not really a Veela."

Harry almost smiled. "Well, it's nice to see that someone around here can still be reasoned with, even if it is you, Mal-"

"It turns out I'm actually a vampire."

Harry facepalmed so hard she nearly knocked herself out. "So. Much. Hatred."

"And as a vampire, I've come to realize that you are-"

"No no no no no! You are not a vampire. You're not a Veela, or a dragon, or a merman, or a chimera, or a ghost. And even if you were, it wouldn't change the fact that I hate you! You are an insufferable, arrogant, spoiled, intolerant little cry-baby who thinks the world revolves around you just because your daddy has money! You're a smug, smarmy git who has dedicated the majority of the last six years of your life to attacking and antagonizing me and my friends! You openly sing the praises of the man who murdered my parents when I was a baby and who continues-!"

"But, your parents are still ali-"

"Ranting! Mouth! Shut!"

Draco shut his mouth.

"And now, after years of being the biggest pain in my ass who wasn't Snape or a Dursley, you suddenly think I should fall right in love with you just because you say so? Give me a single reason as to why I would or should be inclined to do that!"

Draco was silent a moment, wanting to make sure that the rant was really at an end, before speaking. "Because I'm a sexy vampire and chicks dig that?"

"...I'm going to punch you until your face is concave," Harry stated, her breathing ragged.

"If you'd just let me suck your delicious blood, I'm sure you'd come to realize-"

"You're not a vampire!"

"But I have fangs," the blonde stated, pointing to his teeth.

"Those are canines, dullard. Everyone has them!"

"I'm sparkly," he pressed, gesturing to his bared torso.

"That's body glitter!"

"I sleep in a coffin!"

"I don't want to hear about ANYTHING that goes on inside your bedroom! And you know what? I'm going to go ahead and prove once and for all that you're not a vampire."

"How?"

Waving her wand, Harry conjured a sharpened length of wood. "I'm going to jam this stake into your heart. If you die, that means you were a vampire and I'll owe you an apology."

Draco looked confused. "But... that would kill me even if I wasn't a vampire."

"...Hold still."

"What is going on here?" a voice from behind interrupted, making Harry cringe and Draco dash away before she recovered.

Great, Harry thought. As if dealing with Draco wasn't bad enough. Resigning herself, she turned to face her least favorite professor.

Two pairs of eyes flew wide.

"My daughter!" "What the Hell happened to you?" they spoke at the same time.

Silence passed over them, and Harry hung her head. "Okay fine. You can go first."

Without warning, Snape scooped The Boy-Who-Was-A-Girl into a tight embrace. "Oh, my daughter! How I've longed to finally see you like this!"

"I need an adult!" Harry shouted.

Thankfully, Snape let go of the hug, but kept Harry at arms length. There were tears in his eyes as he stared at her face. "Oh, my daughter."

"Please stop calling me that, I feel dirty enough from the hug," she pleaded.

"Never did I believe that the spell would take so long to wear off, Helena," Snape continued undaunted.

Headache was returning full force. "Okay, you do know who I actually am, right?"

"You're my daughter, Hele-"

"Nonononono." She pointed to herself. "Harry Potter. I'm usually a guy, remember? Son of James and Lily Potter? You and I kind of loathe the existence of each other? Ringing bells?"

Snape sighed deeply, his body sagging in anguish. "Yes. Yes, that is the lie that you've been forced to live your whole life. But it's time for you to finally learn the truth."

Harry facepalmed again. "Oh Allanon..."

"You see Helena, you were not born male. Nor were you born to Lily and James Potter. You were, in fact, born to Lily and myself."

Harry gave a small dry-heave, not that Snape noticed.

"Not too long after we graduated from Hogwarts, I realized what a fool I'd been in letting Lily leave me on such horrible terms. I managed to seek her out before she and James went into hiding, and I convinced her to forgive me."

"Lovely," Harry deadpanned.

"Then she forgave me again the next morning," Snape added, causing Harry's eye to twitch violently.

"Dude."

"Twice."

"Shut up!"

Snape glared at her in fatherly reproach. "If you weren't my daughter I'd take points away for your sass, little lady."

Harry rubbed her eyes. "I miss Azkaban."

"Now where was I? Ah, right: Several months later I received a letter from Lily informing me that she'd given birth; a girl, and that it was mine. Obviously, this created a problem, as she was now unhappily married to that abusive drunk, James. Fortunately, she used her brilliant mind to come up with a perfect plan: She used a powerful charm to change you into a boy, and another one to make you look identical to James."

"Were either of those even necessary?" Harry asked, although she was no longer even pretending to sound interested in what was being said. The only reason she was even asking was that there was a chance that someone out there somewhere was listening in on the conversation and really wanted to know the answer themselves. "I look like a black-haired version of my mum, why would he be suspicious of that?"

"Because you have my feet."

"...Your feet."

Snape nodded. "Yes, if James had ever gotten a good look at your bare feet he would have immediately known that you weren't his child."

Harry could only shake her head before pressing on, knowing that there were still issues that somebody would probably want to be addressed. "So you've just been spending the last several years hating your own daughter... why, exactly?"

Snape sighed a truly heart-wrenching sigh. "That was the one folly with Lily's plan. When she made you look like James, she _really_ made you look like James. To the point where I couldn't even stand to look at you without feeling the urge to punch you until both my hands were broke. All I could do was wait until your mother's charms finally wore off and revealed you to be the daughter I've always longed for. And now, finally, that time is here, and we can be a family at long last!"

Harry held up a hand. "Okay, One: No. Never. Not even then. And Two: What about Daniel?"

"Who?"

"Daniel Potter. My twin brother? The Not-The-Boy-Who-Lived? Died yesterday?"

"Oh, right. What about him?"

"Well, if all this crap you're spewing is true, that means he was your son and or daughter too, right?"

Snape rubbed his chin. "Hmm, no. No, I believe he was actually Sirius' kid."

Harry shook her head. "I guess I deserve that for trying to assume logic... Wanna explain to me how that's possible?"

"How what's possible?"

"That my twin brother and I have different fathers."

"Ah, that. It's quite simple, really."

Harry's eyes widened. "Don't you dare say it was-"

"Magic."

"NO! NOT MAGIC!" Harry raged. "You can not just make wildly unbelievable claims like that and then explain it away by saying 'Oh a wizard did it with his magic'! Just because magic exists in this world does not make it a catch-all excuse for every single thing that would otherwise be impossible in a world _without_ magic! It's stupid and it's lazy and it's bad storytelling!"

Snape blinked. "It's what?"

"Stupid! If you're going to be making things up like that the least you could do is _attempt_ to make a bit of sense out of them, you know? Granted, I don't see how you could do that when claiming that twin siblings were born from different fathers, since the only way I could possibly see that working was if you, mum and Sirius had a three-"

The words died in her throat. Her body sagged, her jaw slackened and her eyes shrunk. For a good twenty seconds she didn't move or speak, to the point where Snape was starting to worry.

"Magic," Harry whispered more to herself than anyone else. "It happened by magic." That decided, she nodded and walked away.

"Helena wait, where are you going?" Snape asked.

"I don't know," she called without emotion. "I don't know anything anymore."

"Don't you want to have some father-daughter bonding time?"

"I sure don't."

"But wasn't there something you wanted to ask me earlier?"

Harry finally stopped to look back over her shoulder at her could-be dad. "Well, I was going to ask what you'd done to get rid of your ugly greasy hair, your ugly yellow teeth, your ugly parrot nose, your ugly beady eyes and your ugly sallow skin in order to make yourself look not that ugly at all, but I don't seem to care in the slightest anymore. See you in class."

As she left him behind, Snape's chocolate-brown orbs followed her until she was out of sight. He ran his perfectly manicured fingers through his luscious, flowing raven locks, using his other hand to rub his perfectly straight and symmetrically-pleasing nose as his tongue traced along the ridges of his perfectly straightened, white-as-pure-fallen-snow teeth.

"I don't know what she's talking about," he muttered, pulling a hand mirror from his pocket to admire himself. "I've always looked this sexy." His eyes darkened as he glanced toward the sky. "Always."

xxx

Harry had almost made it to the Great Hall when she was stopped once again by someone. This time it was Professor Flitwick.

"Ah, Harry my dear, uh... girl." He seemed at a lose while looking her over, but recovered quickly. "Just who I was looking for. I happened to witness your return to the castle yesterday and I was astounded by the way you turned Peeves to stone by staring at him the way you did. It got me to thinking: It's very possible that you could be the first person in known Magical history to have a basilisk as an animagus form, in which case-"

"In which case I would use it to eat anybody who stopped me from getting my breakfast and going on about my day as normally as possible," Harry growled, glaring at the tiny man who quickly diverted his eyes elsewhere.

"...We'll uh... we'll talk later, perhaps." In his haste to get away, he tripped and fell twice.

Harry continued on her way, and Heaven help anyone who decided to spring another surprise on her.

xxx

xxx

I'd make comments here, but I'm in a rush.

Til next time.

LL


End file.
